Showing posts with label rudy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rudy. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2019

The Guessing Game - Updated

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses:

Simone Biles: Broke the all-time record, male or female, for medals at the gymnastics World Championships
Anne Sacoolas: The American wife of a diplomat serving in the U.K., Sacoolas is accused of hitting and killing a British teenager while driving on the wrong side of the road. Claiming diplomatic immunity, she returned to the U.S. The dead boy's distraught parents are insisting immunity be waived
Hunter Biden: Still in the news. ABC interviewed him over the week-end, it will air on several ABC shows beginning tomorrow
Peter Weber: The next Bachelor was injured while golfing on an off day in Costa Rica. Question: who carries two cocktail glasses while climbing into a golf cart?
Matt Lauer, Brook Nevils and/or Ronan Farrow: Farrow's new book includes a claim from Nevils that Lauer raped her during the Sochi Olympics. Lauer claims their sexual encounters were consensual
Marie Osmond and the Osmond Brothers: The original 4 will perform for the final time on today's episode of The Talk
Coleen Rooney: A bizarre feud on Twitter, did Rebekah Vardy give false stories to a tabloid. based  on items in Rooney's personal Instagram account? (Who are these people? They're the wives of big-deal soccer players in England.) (Read more here)
Shep Smith: In a surprise on Friday, Smith announced he was leaving Fox News. Was he fired or did he resign?
Carson King: Donated over $3 million dollars to a children's hospital after his "need money for beer" sign went viral
James Middleton: Kate's brother is engaged
Tyler Skaggs: A Los Angeles Angels employee claims to have provided Skaggs with the drugs that killed him
Coco Gauff: The 15-year-old phenom won her first Singles title and is now ranked in the Top 100
Joe Giudice: Released by ICE and now in Italy, Giudice will continue to fight extradition

 Sexiest Man: Not for this week, but it's time to start thinking about the 2019 Sexiest Man. People usually announces the newly-crowned winner in early November. Right now I have no guesses for who it might be this year; here are the previous winners:

1985 Mel Gibson
1986 Mark Harmon
1987 Harry Hamlin
1988 John Kennedy, Jr.
1989 Sean Connery
1990 Tom Cruise
1991 Patrick Swayze
1992 Nick Nolte
1993 Sexiest Couple: Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford
1995 Brad Pitt
1996 Denzel Washington
1997 George Clooney
1998 Harrison Ford
1999 Richard Gere
2000 Brad Pitt
2001 Pierce Brosnan
2002 Ben Affleck
2003 Johnny Depp
2004 Jude Law
2005 Matthew McConaughey
2006 George Clooney
2007 Matt Damon
2008 Hugh Jackman
2009 Johnny Depp
2010 Ryan Reynolds
2011 Bradley Cooper
2012 Channing Tatum
2013 Adam Levine
2014 Chris Hemsworth
2015 David Beckham
2016 Dwayne Johnson
2017 Blake Shelton
2018 Idris Elba

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update: William and Kate: A "complex" visit to Pakistan.

And one more thing. Remember this?:

Image result for rudy giuliani on cover of People magazine

It's from 18 years ago, when Rudy Giuliani was in the process of dumping his second wife and taking up with his third. (Read the cover story, dated May 28, 2001, here.) I don't really think People will put Rudy on the cover this week, but if they want to, all they have to do is swap out the pictures and change a few words because history is repeating itself. (Wow, is it possible that Rudy isn't a very nice man?) Rudy is done with wife number three, as explained by the Washington Post in an article titled "Third time was not the charm: Rudy Giuliani's latest divorce is bitter, expensive and very public"

It starts with this:

In the “What on earth happened to Rudy Giuliani?” sweepstakes, there are plenty of entries but no winners. Everyone wants to know why “America’s Mayor” became President Trump’s favorite consigliere.

Here’s one factor: He’s in the midst of a very bitter, very expensive, very public divorce. (A moment of silence, please, for the death of romance — especially when there’s no prenuptial.) Perhaps the contentious end of his third marriage is a distraction?

... includes this:

Giuliani, 75, is leaving this marriage the same way he entered it: with blaring headlines, tabloid updates and so much drama.

“He digs it,” says Ken Frydman, spokesman for his 1993 mayoral campaign. “He loves the attention. It’s sport for him — and a lack of judgment.”

In May 2000, New York’s two-term mayor called a news conference and announced a separation from his second wife, television anchor Donna Hanover. It was also a public acknowledgment of his year-long relationship with Judith Nathan, whom he praised as a “very, very fine woman.” The separation, however, was allegedly a surprise to his wife, who said she found out her 16-year marriage was ending by watching television.

A surprise, but also not surprising: Hanover started dating Giuliani when he was married to his first wife, Regina Peruggi. An eternal mystery: When the mistress becomes the wife, why is she shocked when another mistress enters the scene? (“Job opening,” goes the old joke.)

... Nathan and Giuliani met in 1999 at Club Macanudo, an East Side cigar bar. Nathan, divorced from her second husband, was a hospital sales rep and a trained nurse. Across the room: Mayor Giuliani. Sparks flew.

“It was the thunderbolt,’’ he told the New York Times. “Our attraction was instantaneous. There was almost something mystical about the feeling.’’

Soon, the two were inseparable, except for the quality time he spent with his wife and two children.

The affair was not, shall we say, discreet. Nathan accompanied the mayor to a number of official functions and stayed at his side during his treatment for prostate cancer, which led to his divorce lawyer’s TMI revelation in 2001 that the cancer had rendered Giuliani impotent and the two had not had sex for a year. They were not ones to let the marriage of true minds admit impediments, so love flourished.

... and ends with this:

Judith Giuliani, 64, receives $42,000 a month in alimony, an amount she claims is peanuts compared with the $230,000 per month they spent as a couple, according to the New York Times. Her lawyer, Bernard Clair, reported that Giuliani earned millions working at the law firm Greenberg Traurig: Almost $8 million in 2016 and $9 million in 2017. He also claims that by working pro bono for Trump, his client’s husband is deliberately concealing income and working with people who will have to “reimburse him” at a later date.

Giuliani, on the other hand, is pleading poverty. Because he is working for free and paying his own expenses, his lawyer says he can’t afford to support his wife in the lifestyle to which she became accustomed and had to borrow money to pay taxes.

“My reason for working for President Trump for free is wholly and entirely patriotic, and also because he is my friend,” he told the New York Post.

Meanwhile, they’re reportedly fighting over everything: money, Christmas decorations, remote controls and who gets to hang out in which of the private clubs to which they belong.

Judge Michael Katz told the couple: “It is beyond me why either party in this case would have an interest in having all of this done publicly.” Settling, he said, “would treat their relationship and marriage with more respect than divulging all our dirty laundry out for public consumption.”

That’s not happening. There is some chatter in New York that Judith Giuliani is writing a book — or it might be a savvy negotiating tactic for someone with no prenuptial and a good memory.

The Giulianis’ next court date is scheduled for January. (Read the entire article here.) 

 Update #2. See the new cover, featuring Michael Douglas and his son Cameron, here. 
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Thursday, November 8, 2018

Chris Christie For Attorney General? - Updated



Who in their right mind would join the Trump administration at this point? My belief is that anyone with a brain and a pulse is frantically trying to get out before they're destroyed. (There are rumors that Trump alums are already having difficulty getting jobs post-White House.) Does Chris Christie really want to be Attorney General? It's possible. His name is on some of the lists I've seen. Will he get the job? Maybe. But consider the following.

Back in July, 2016, after Christie was considered for VP but not chosen, I wrote a post titled Unintended Consequences. It included this:

Does Chris Christie regret putting a man named Charles Kushner in jail back in 2005, when he was a U.S. attorney? Possibly. Is that the reason he wasn't chosen to be Donald Trump's running mate? Possibly. In a story dated March 4, 2005, the New York Times explains what happened:

NEWARK, March 4 - Charles Kushner, a multimillionaire real estate executive, philanthropist and one of the top Democratic donors in the country, was sentenced on Friday to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations.

Mr. Kushner, 50, built a construction business begun by his father into a private real estate empire that owned more than 25,000 apartments, millions of square feet of commercial and industrial space and thousands of acres of developable land.

But Mr. Kushner also became embroiled in a bitter family feud over the business and how proceeds were distributed. That dispute, plus his growing prominence as a political financier, helped lead to his downfall. The intrafamily acrimony was such that Mr. Kushner retaliated against his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities, by hiring a prostitute to seduce him. He then arranged to have a secretly recorded videotape of the encounter sent to his sister, the man's wife.

The two-year sentence was the most Mr. Kushner could have received under a plea agreement, reached last September with the United States attorney, Christopher J. Christie, that called for 18 to 24 months in prison. But it was less than the sentence of nearly three years that Mr. Christie had sought in recent weeks after concluding that Mr. Kushner had failed to show "acceptance of responsibility" for his crimes as required by the plea deal. Read the article here. 

What does this have to do with the current Veepstakes? Charles Kushner's son Jared is now married to Ivanka Trump. He's The Donald's son-in-law and word on the street is that Jared Kushner does not want the man who put his father in jail on the ticket. How about that! (Read the entire post here.)

Jared didn't want Christie as the VP nominee and I've also seen reporting that claims Jared was behind Christie's dismissal as head of the transition team, once it became clear that there really was going to be a transition. In spite of the happy talk coming from the White House, insisting that Jared and Chris work well together and get along just fine, I'd bet that Jared still hates Chris Christie with the fury of God's own thunder. (Hat tip: Aaron Sorkin.) I just can't see Chris Christie being welcomed into the Trump White House as long as Jared is still there.

Update. Some thoughts from Josh Marshall about the Acting Attorney General:

Here's the part that I'm most focused on. This [firing Jeff Sessions/installing Whitaker] is clearly a corrupt act as to intention. We should now clearly see the Mueller probe as under direct attack, under immediate threat and likely to be damaged. However, I do not think we should assume this was well-planned or thought out. This isn't meant to be pollyanna-ish. It's really, really bad. But to me the Comey firing was instructive. It was also really, really bad. But it was also clear that it was impulsive, poorly thought out and in many ways counterproductive. It led immediately to the intensification of the investigation and the appointment of Robert Mueller. I think it's possible this move will have unpredicted outcomes which will be damaging to Trump.

 Relatedly, Mueller is a career player in US law enforcement. Whitaker appears to be basically a punk. For all the fanfic we see about Mueller from the resistance, he's not a member of the resistance. He's never going to go rogue. He's a man of the Department of Justice. If Whitaker is the lawful AG I think he will follow his guidance and oversight to the degree it is lawful. But Mueller is clearly smarter than Whitaker and much, much more experienced. What I don't expect is that he would be cowed by bureaucratic game-playing. So I suspect we're in a slow motion Saturday Night Massacre but one that is on-going rather than done and in which the particulars of how it plays out are less predictable than we might imagine. (Read the entire post here.)

Update #2. More from TPM, posted at 7.56 a.m. Friday morning:

After the White House was met with rejection from two potential attorney general candidates, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is becoming a likelier possibility, according to a Thursday Politico report. 

 President Donald Trump reportedly thinks that Christie deserves the post after patiently enduring the humiliation of being completely passed over during the 2016 transition. 

 Christie was spotted at the White House on Thursday for a meeting with Jared Kushner about prison reform. He is reportedly working to mend his relationship with Kushner, one that has been acrimonious since Christie landed Kushner's father in jail. 

 Per Politico, Christie could, however, face calls to recuse himself from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe if he got the job due to his role in Trump's 2016 election. A recusal would almost certainly earn Trump's enduring fury, as former attorney general Jeff Sessions knows well.

Interesting. This both reinforces my belief that at this point wise people aren't willing to destroy their futures by working for this president and challenges my belief that there's no way Christie would even be considered as long as Jared is around. Is it possible that Christie has sufficiently abased himself to earn Jared's forgiveness? Maybe, but imagine the scene: Big, loud, in-your-face New Jersey tough guy Chris Christie, slobbering all over slender, baby-faced born-on-third-base-thinks-he-hit-a-triple presidential son-in-law Jared... The mind reels. 

Even if Christie eventually gets the job, things are still pretty humiliating for him. On top of having to suck up to Jared Kushner, he'll have to live with a narrative that says he only got the job because no one else wanted it. The Politico article referred to above is headlined "Sessions' job is hard to fill. Enter Chris Christie." Yikes. (Read it here.) Who are the two smart people who said no? Their names will probably surface eventually; the New York Daily News is running a story that says Kris Kobach, Lindsey Graham, Pam Bondi and Rudy Giuliani are under consideration along with Christie. Read it here.

Update #3. AJ speaks some truth about the Christie situation: "[N]o one on the campaign impregnated him"
Update #4 on Monday, November 12. From Politico:

A scandal not nearly as infamous as Bridgegate could have major implications for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he's nominated to become the next U.S. Attorney General. 

 In 2016, the Christie administration paid a $1.5 million settlement to a former assistant county prosecutor who claimed the administration took over his office and fired him, all with the aim of dismissing the office's 43-count indictment against several of the governor's allies that embarrassed one of Christie's major contributors. 

 That whistleblower, Bennett Barlyn, told POLITICO on Monday that he has grave concerns about Christie becoming the nation's top law enforcement official, and his case could take on new relevance, with the next attorney general poised to take over the department that oversees the special counsel's investigation in the 2016 election.

 Barlyn said that if Christie is nominated, the Senate should look at this case as just one way the former governor wielded justice, both as governor and U.S. Attorney, for political ends. Barlyn noted that during Christie's time as U.S. Attorney,  some companies entered into deferred prosecution agreements with the office in which, rather than face prosecution, they paid Christie's allies millions of dollars to monitor them. (Read the rest of the story here.)
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Sunday, August 19, 2018

One Morning On Twitter...

Some interesting tweets this morning, in no particular order:

THIS IS A LIE. The e-mail proposing the meeting to Don Jr. specifically said: "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Don Jr. replied "I love it" and eagerly set-up the meeting. https://t.co/3euM8uZgFS



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