#at least he SHOULD BE the president of hater club | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

christiluv · 7 years ago

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Dear President Trump

The Democrats keep blocking me from writing you at Whitehouse.gov, because they have essentially ruined my life, so now I must write this open public letter to you, because it is the only way to reach out to you.

......................... ABOUT YOU .........................

Dear Mr. President,

First and foremost, I'd just like to say that my family and I voted for you in 2016, and you are the 1st GOP presidential candidate that I myself have ever cast my vote for at the ballot box. We have GREAT respect for you, your WONDERFUL family and your PHENOMENAL empire, which you have created.

We admire your strength and intelligence, The First Lady's beauty and style, and your kids' grace and poise, following in your footsteps of greatness. We are very proud of you and all the amazing things you have accomplished. We think you're doing a FANTASTIC job!

We also hope that your party falls in line and works with you to get more done, so that you can win again in 2020 as well as in the midterms, and do more good work for "We The People".

You are most certainly-- a "winner"!!! --And we LIKE your tweets!

..................... ABOUT US ....................

~ ME ~

I'm a writer, who's been writing since childhood, won awards for both singing, songwriting, poetry and essays, and I beat out hundreds of teens, chosen to write for The Orlando Sentinel Newspaper as teen journalist and music / concert reviewer.

I studied writing and film in college, wrote, produced and directed the film short, "A Babysitter's Nightmare", and also collaborated with my writing partner / Mom, to write, produce and direct the music video "Love Dance". I've been a church youth leader, who wrote several newsletters and an advice column, and I have a strong social media presence, writing blogs, Youtube "TV" videos, audio books, and a soap opera, "The Young and The Powerful".

Between Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, I have gained over 10K fans, with songs trending at #1 on ReverbNation for over a year now, and my video / audiobook, "@VirginLoveTV presents The Top 3 Reasons Why I Stopped Dating-- A #VirginSecrets #RealTalk Chat with Christi Luv", and GarageBand album, "@GirlPowerTV presents #CrowdfundThis Til We #RevivePOPmusic!" --An Original Song Sampler CD & MP3, out on Soundcloud and ReverbNation, and soon to be on Amazon.

Some of the novels I've authored include The Book Club Elite acclaimed YA paranormal romance mystery adventure, "Chris Taylor's Hunting Love: The Curse of The Blood Red Seductress", the MG superhero fantasy action adventure, "Chris Taylor's Angel Wars: Comet & Lady Phantom Rise", and the YA murder mystery conspiracy thriller, "The Killer Secrets of Skyler Stone: My Funny Valentine", as well as many screenplays, titles, and a catalog of hit blockbuster commercial concepts, including the inspirational YA paranormal romance mystery drama, "Love Me Tender: The Existence of Sound".

~ MOM ~

My Mom is a veteran performer of stage, tours (Marvelettes, Platters), TV, Broadway, Film ("Hair!", U. A.), and recording (Motown, CBS), with songs published ("Maybe, Maybe Not", "Smile", E.M.I. Italy), and a studio singer on film soundtracks ("The Point", "Lion King"). She's written poems, stories, and stage plays since youth, later wrote, produced, and directed many summer youth productions, and has received awards from The Orlando Bureau of Recreation, Young Adults Progressive Club, NY Chamber of Commerce & Ohio Mayor's Office Recognition Awards for her work, presented by S.T.A.A (Support The Artists of America).

She wrote, produced and directed a PBS TV documentary, "Did You Know? Well You Should!", which won wide acclaim, was a journalist and theatre / film critic columnist for 5 years with The Orlando Times Newspaper. Affiliations include ASCAP, SAG - AFTRA, WGA, and FMPTA, with her PBS broadcasted TV special, "@BlackHeroesTV presents #HEROisTheNewBLACK!"--a positive documentary film series pilot, and "@GirlPowerTV presents #SupportHiddenLegends 2 #SaveMusicLegacies" Blog Journal, coming soon to Amazon.com.

Some of the novels TP has authored include The Book Club Elite acclaimed YA psychological drama suspense mystery, "T.D. Perkins' The Boy Next Door", and the YA social human interest drama, "T.D. Perkins' In His Shoes", as well as many screenplay scripts, titles, and a catalog of hit blockbuster commercial concepts, including the YA romantic horror mystery comedy, "Bite Me!".

Together, we write both fiction and nonfiction, in multiple genres, with an eye for promoting better positive role model characters of more diverse colors, heroes, and the spiritual power and beauty of God. We also write our novels as screenplays, with the end goal of producing them as blockbuster films. We have also written and compiled over 20 blog-journals together, including, "@MySoulFireTV presents The Hi-5-IQ Homeschooler's Guide To Critical Thinking ~ An Educational Textbook Series Overview & Notebook", which will be out soon on Amazon.

......................................... ABOUT OUR FAMILY .........................................

We are The Perkins Family. We've volunteered, donated, and hosted fund-raisers for other peoples' noble causes, and given to many charities, regularly over decades. On the creative front, we have conscientiously woven important social and moral causes into all of our written works, music and productions, and seek to educate and enlighten as well as entertain. We live in a racially mixed middle class neighborhood in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Born into a blended melting pot of Native American, Black and German blood in our ancestry, we come from a great family legacy of American History.

I spring from a noted genius musician and arranger dad, who graduated from a military academy.My grandpa was a military Veteran and former Sergeant, who fought for our country in World War 2, and lost his left hand. My great grandfather William Warley-- a Black Newspaper Owner / Editor / Publisher and NAACP Leader-- fought in 1917 to racially desegregate the housing communities in Louisville, Kentucky, with the historic U.S. Supreme Court case of Buchanan vs Warley-- and WON-- which is why he named her grandma "Victoria"-- for their/our "VICTORY". My uncle served in The Air Force, and other family members have served in various positions, or are currently serving our country and faith in other powerful ways. So the work we and our family have done and still do has given back to others in multiple ways. We look forward to giving back even more in creative ways.

.......................................... ABOUT THIS LETTER ..........................................

The reason why I'm writing you this letter is because some (and perhaps many) of us over in The I-4 Corridor purple swing state of Florida are being persecuted by at least 1 of 3 organized entities-- Utilities, Inc, Duke Energy, and an unidentified biological engineering agency that has been abusing their power in our home.

Utilities Inc and Duke Energy have cut off our-- and other peoples'-- water and power, over stupid technicalities and errors that were their fault or their orchestration, and there has been no compensation for all the business, health, and sanity that was lost from it.

We have consulted lawyers and are considering our lawsuit options to sue them. But what we need from you is your attention to the fact that these companies have no competition-- and that is why they get away with murder, hurting millions of seniors, veterans, and shut-ins all over the state and country.

Many people have worked hard but are still living paycheck to paycheck because the fields that they are good at or have expertise in do not pay them well, or no one will give them a better gig than what they have-- or they're too old or too sick to matriculate in the rough and tumble job market. These people need protection from vulture monopolies-- and competitive capitalism is the answer.

Won't you stand up for healthy competition for the monopolies that control peoples' lives?

We are literally starving artists, as there is no food in our fridge right now, but we are hungry for more than just physical tangible food--

We are hungry for change.

We are hungry for truth.

We are hungry for triumph.

We're also hungry for food--

But right now, we are passionately hungry for justice.

Will you help us fight back against the tyranny of the greedy monopolies that dominate our daily lives?

Before we file an official lawsuit against these companies, preferably this month, we are asking you or your people to step in and make an example of our utilities company and power company, using our situation to show why Free Market Capitalism-- the realm that you MASTER like a KING-- and the competition that makes it work-- are all so important to our society-- and to show that people-- especially those who have health problems, disabilities, and/or are aging seniors, who've worked all their lives and deserve a break now-- should not live and die on computer glitches and stupid procedural technicalities-- or company error.

It would also prove to all the ridiculously dumb haters and lying traitors out there that you really do care about people of color too, cause you're not racist like they try to slander you as, and it also shows everyone that you're so likable and winning that you got a socially conservative Independent (me) and Democrat (mom) to vote for you in 2016-- simply because--

--you just got it like that.

Either way, you would be doing good for good people, all over Central Florida, as well as doing good for a family that just so happens to come from a historic legacy of noble American History, honorable military veteran service, and uniquely creative giftedness.

We are suffering terribly-- constantly hungry and stressed out-- and I do believe that The Agency directing such negative things in our lives is savage, vicious, inhumane, abusive, haughty and vile. The evil way they torment us is cruel and unusual punishment-- and it needs to stop, like yesterday.

Please use your power to make them STOP doing bad things to us. Please rescue us. We put our hopes in Obama and he let us down. So now it's your turn. Please be our hero and show our old liberal friends-- and new conservative ones-- why we voted for you.

We are desperate for relief-- as ANY relief is GOOD relief at this point, and if things don't let up, I will have to hitchhike at night on the highway, to the ocean-- just to escape the pain and torture of it all.

We believe in you.

And I believe that as soon as this letter meets your eyes-- or your reader's eyes-- you'll come to our rescue and save our day, like The Big Man On Campus that you are. Because you are The Leader of our FREE World, The Head of our State, The Commander In Chief who WE voted for and supported the candidacy of, from jump street. We knew you were gonna win as soon as you said you were running!

That's how much faith we had in you!

So whether you get personally involved or you delegate someone on a lower level to get involved with this case, I know in my heart, soul, and gut that somehow you will help to fix this mess-- cause God put you in power to fight for the PEOPLE and make RIGHT what all the incompetent apathetic LOSERS do WRONG.

Because THAT'S who you ARE.

We are on your side, we have always been on your side during this election cycle, and we will remain standing by your side-- if we have any legs left to stand on by the end of this summer, month and week. Cause we're falling apart at the seams and when I prayed to God to deliver us, He told me to go directly to you, surpass all others, and reach out to the one in the highest office--

--and that's you.

Our last remaining hope...

Thank you. God Bless you. And if you see fit, we also welcome you to help support our efforts to help seniors, veterans and shut-ins in our Christian, faith-based Angel Hearts Art Club crowdfund project to raise funds to help the community at Patreon.com/SoulFireTV, and our effort to cure painful issues like my medical matters at Patreon.com/CureMeTV.

Thank you for reading this. We hope to hear from you or your people soon. We know you're busy dealing with crazy psycho dictators and whatnot... Hope all is well! :) And thanks so much for saving us all from this indecent hell!

God Bless!

Sincerely, Christi Luv AKA Chris Taylor 407-227-3710 / 407-788-8986 / [email protected] ReverbNation.com/ChristiLuv / MyArtHaven.WixSite.com/Shop

OUR URGENT CAUSE CAMPAIGNS:

Patreon.com/CureMeTV (To Pay For My Medicine)

Patreon.com/ChristiLuv (To Support Other Causes Including: Angel Hearts Art Club for Seniors, Vets & Shut-Ins & Crowdfund To Turn Our Positive, Original, Inspirational Teen and Young Adult Reading Novels Into Graphic Novels)

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scott-specialist-blog · 6 years ago

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6. Full Script - Transcribed

This is a story of a young boy named Bobby. Bobby is a kind and gentle, but equally active and energetic boy of many talents. He enjoys creative subjects in school and always turns up on time. He likes to roll around in the playground, and make the other kids laugh in class. He cares about his family, teachers and friends very much. But then Bobby changed. He began to feel different to everyone else. At a very young age, Bobby was diagnosed with High Functioning Asperger's Syndrome, a subset of Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Asperger's and autism, are developmental disorders, which occupy a wide variety of different severities. This means no two people with the condition are the same. But the dominant patterns are difficulties in social interaction, communication, and restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behaviour.

Bobby had a hard time making friends at bigger school. He got picked on for standing out as odd or different. Bobby never had the tools he needed to be able to fully articulate and express his true self. The autistic condition is an invisible one that is hidden within. It remains present, yet without making itself immediately obvious, apparent or noticeable to the naked eye. From the outside, Bobby appears to be rather normal. Therefore, one expects Bobby to make efforts to conform and fulfil the demands that come with day to day living.

His autistic condition receives little attention. So Bobby has no choice but to bear the pressure, and make every physical and psychological effort he can to “blend in” and “look normal”, at the expense of complete exhaustion and dissatisfaction, even nonacceptance, of self. The problem with navigating towards a fulfilling and high quality life of independence with autism is a complex one. The condition is lifelong, meaning it doesn’t go away. Equally, our efforts to trace its origin prior to birth have proved futile at finding a cure. Consequently, autism is not a disease which can simply “be cured”. Our best so-called “cures” are positive encouragement, intervention and therapy, with a focus on self-improvement.

There are reassuring points to autism however. Over half of high functioning people are reported to have at least average to above average intelligence. Some are talented in a specific skill, such as drawing, arithmetic or playing an instrument. Adverse symptoms also frequently loosen their grip on the bearer as they progress into early adulthood. This is great news for people with autism and their families and loved ones, but it does come with a risk of somewhat discrediting or invalidating the disorder. Bobby is doing really well academically, achieving top grades. He’s also captain of the school soft ball team; president of the chess club and a three-year running subject award winner. He’s already at grade 7 in music, has a close group of friends, and he even has a girlfriend. One may ask, having achieved so much, how Bobby could possibly be struggling.

It’s a fair question. The answer lies on the inside. It’s around his friends and peers where Bobby feels most at ease and relaxed, so they only get to see his confident side and are unaware of his struggle. They don’t know that Bobby is on an ongoing quest towards discovering his inner self; someone who feels a little bit muddled up, often feels dispirited and broken, and has grown to be far too critical to himself. On the inside secretly, Bobby feels like he’s just about had it with pushing limits and climbing mountains to mask, and compensate for his difficulties to avoid becoming a hindrance and seeking for constant approval.

Autism in society has become somewhat of a taboo. “Don’t use it as an excuse” is frequently drummed into us. It must be that Bobby is just a difficult, unmanageable and stubborn person. Perhaps he should just stop being awkward and adopt a standard of behaviour”. But Bobby can’t, not even if he wants to. It’s just not in the cards. The natural order of things don’t make sense to him. The world may not bend itself to suit Bobby, but he needs a healthy balance just as the world does, just as there needs to be sunshine as well as rain, and the change of the seasons. Bobby needs to stay true to self, as well as make compromises to meet the world half way. This is the key to responsibility.

The critics, the haters, the party-poopers and nay-sayers are probably no angels themselves. They’re fraught with their own inner demons and life problems. That’s not to say that autism is trivial, nor should we choose to cocoon and shelter our children from the frightening and unforgiving tests and trials of the outside world. Moreover, our aim should be to stamp out the stigma, refrain from the finger-pointing and lay back from the incessant labels. On the other side of the coin, we must not glorify or parade autism as a plea for special treatment or packages that would disclude them from the difficulties which all other people must naturally face. This would be a disservice and demean the efforts for the good lives bearers have worked so hard, and sacrificed so much, to create.

So what really is autism and how should we best understand it? We should view autism as a reminder that support is invaluable, and paradoxically, that being different more so than everybody else reflects back the unique quirks and talents in all of us. We’re all a little bit autistic in our own, both incomplete and gifted, ways, and that means we can all benefit from more positive encouragement. Those that bear the condition of autism, and have their own set of frustrations and difficulties magnified, are not alone from the rest of us. But it’s equally important, just as much as us all who have to face up to our own inner demons sooner or later, that autism be recognised as a hidden badge of honour for the silent battles fought from within...

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friend-clarity · 6 years ago

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Dartmouth Nightmare: leftism poisons our universities

Dartmouth Nightmare, November 9, 2018, David Horowitz

On October 23, I spoke at your college. I was invited by members of College Republicans and Students Supporting Israel. They probably wanted to hear what I had to say because I am one of the most prominent conservative intellectuals in America, having published over twenty books, three of which were New York Times best-sellers and one of which was nominated for a National Book Award. The feminist Camille Paglia has said of me: “I respect the astute and rigorously unsentimental David Horowitz as one of America's most original and courageous political analysts…. As a scholar who regularly surveys archival material, I think that, a century from now, cultural historians will find David Horowitz's spiritual and political odyssey paradigmatic for our time. ...

Leading the pack of Dartmouth character assassins who mobilized to combat my presence was Professor Annelise Oreleck, an out-of-control Gender Studies professor ... Professor Oreleck’s protest instructions happened to be – and surely this was no coincidence - exactly what the Dartmouth Socialists were planning to obstruct my lecture - namely to turn an academic talk into a circus so that no one would pay serious attention to anything that was said. They came in force to play loud porn videos, put on headphones to block out my words, unfurl distracting banners with slogans like “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” and “ICE is the Gestapo,” and to periodically walk out of the room throwing jibes in my direction as further distractions before they left. One transgender person, dressed as though she was going to Mardi Gras, sat herself near the front and eyed me intensely in the hope I guess that I would find her disturbing.

President Philip Hanlon Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire

Dear President Hanlon,

Despite my credentials, and even though these conservative students pay the same tuition - $75,000 per year – as your leftwing students, I was forced to raise the money to underwrite my visit and lecture. This was particularly galling to the Dartmouth conservatives who invited me, because the previous spring Dartmouth’s “Office of Pluralism and Leadership” sponsored a visit by notorious anti-Semite and terrorist supporter Linda Sarsour – who has no academic credentials to speak of – underwriting her expenses and paying her a reported $10,000 honorarium for her talk.

My hosts were also probably interested in what I had to say because over the preceding decades, Dartmouth has purged conservative intellectuals from its faculty so effectively that the students could only name two Dartmouth liberal arts professors who were conservative. This reflects a collective faculty attitude that intellectual diversity is dangerous and unwanted. This is a disgraceful fact of academic life, which could easily be remedied, which prevents Dartmouth students from getting a decent liberal arts education, where all issues are controversial and intellectual diversity is the only guarantee that students are being educated rather than indoctrinated, or that there are reasonable checks on unchallenged leftist professors going off the deep end. As it happens my visit elicited a professorial outburst showing just how far leftwing bigotry and anti-academic discourse can go on your campus. I will come to this in a moment.

Before my arrival, an anonymous leaflet was circulated, apparently by the Dartmouth Socialists club. It was filled with lies about my work, calling me a “racist, sexist and ignorant bigot.” These slanders were drawn from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an institution so discredited that it recently had to pay a devout and moderate British Muslim $3.4 million after it libeled him as “a violent anti-Muslim extremist.” None of the students behind this slander sheet was apparently aware that I have a 50-year public record as a civil rights activist, or that I have published three books in the last 20 years dedicated to Martin Luther King’s vision of an America in which people are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. And why should Dartmouth students be aware of my views since Dartmouth’s leftwing faculty obviously has no respect for conservative perspectives, which is why conservatives are as rare as unicorns on your faculty. Leading the pack of Dartmouth character assassins who mobilized to combat my presence was Professor Annelise Oreleck, an out-of-control Gender Studies professor who tweeted: “Long-time hater, Islamophobe and anti-intellectual David Horowitz is speaking today in Rocky 3 at 6pm. He is a hater of the first order. If you’re so inclined, support students who are organizing a protest – Bring signs. Turn your back. Stage a walkout.” What justification can there be to have such an angry, close-minded individual teaching Dartmouth students?

Professor Oreleck’s protest instructions happened to be – and surely this was no coincidence - exactly what the Dartmouth Socialists were planning to obstruct my lecture - namely to turn an academic talk into a circus so that no one would pay serious attention to anything that was said. They came in force to play loud porn videos, put on headphones to block out my words, unfurl distracting banners with slogans like “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” and “ICE is the Gestapo,” and to periodically walk out of the room throwing jibes in my direction as further distractions before they left. One transgender person, dressed as though she was going to Mardi Gras, sat herself near the front and eyed me intensely in the hope I guess that I would find her disturbing.

All the disrespectful antics of the protesters were in fact disturbing – not least because they were displays of Ivy League students wasting what could have been a valuable educational opportunity, and demonstrations of their total lack of interest in what someone who disagreed with them, and was far more educated, might be saying. When I was a college radical, as I told them to no effect, I always wanted to hear what our opponents were saying because I thought it would make me a better radical. Apparently, today’s radicals are so dedicated to self-righteous know-nothingism that they couldn’t care less what they are fighting against. As for the transgenderism, like many other conservatives, I am actually a very tolerant person. I happen to have a transgendered grandson who graduated from an Ivy League school and would never think of attending a college lecture only to mock it.

Wondering how students paying $75,000 a year for a Dartmouth education could throw away such an opportunity, it occurred to me that maybe they were not paying anything at all, but were so-called “marginalized” and “under-served” affirmative action scholarship cases. What a travesty that Dartmouth would encourage them to squander the opportunity their scholarships provided by not insisting on behavior appropriate to an academic community. When educators encourage closed minds, what is left of the learning process?

As it happens there were several Dartmouth administrators overseeing this event, including Keysi Montás, the Director of Safety and Security who was in charge. Unfortunately, they were not there to enforce an educational decorum but to encourage the protesters by tolerating their antics and refusing to eject them.

The whole travesty was sealed by the school newspaper, The Dartmouth, which bills itself as “The Oldest College Newspaper,” and which sent a reporter named Andrew Culver to cover the event. Before I began speaking, I gave Culver a recorded interview at his request. In it, I defended myself against the slanders in the anonymous leaflet, and showed him exactly how and why they were gross misrepresentations of the facts. For example, I was called a “sexist” for pointing out the scientific fact that men score higher on mathematical aptitude tests than women. What the slander sheet left out was that I also said, women score higher than men on verbal aptitude tests, and that I brought up these facts in defense of Harvard’s liberal president, Larry Summers, who was under fire for stating them first. I also described my public record as a civil rights activist, mentioned the fact that I had three black grandchildren, and was probably the only conservative in the country to defend Trayvon Martin during the trial of his killer George Zimmerman.

The Dartmouth reporter Andrew Culver failed to print a single word of my interview. Instead he opened his article by repeating the lies in the leaflet – namely that I was a racist, a sexist and a bigot. Culver’s mis-reporting of the event closed off the possibility that anyone in the Dartmouth community at large would be exposed to anything I had actually said. Only the slanders would remain. This is the state of education at a once admired Ivy League institution, where students can go four years without encountering a conservative adult. Moreover, if one is invited to campus to speak, he will be drowned out by students who shouldn’t be in college in the first place.

You had no personal role in these travesties, but you are president of the institution that made them possible. I’m not going to ask you to have your “Office of Pluralism (how Orwellian is that)” sponsor a return visit from me, since it might well provoke a faculty riot. I just want you to think about these signs of a damaged institution. and the warping of the educational experiences of your students.

I would like an apology from you on behalf of the Dartmouth community. I would also like to see some instruction from you to your staff on the importance of promoting educational values rather than encouraging close-minded political bigotry at your school. Perhaps hiring a dozen or so conservative administrators might help.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz

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mlmcompanies · 6 years ago

Link

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Judging from some of their past scandals and legal troubles, going private was definitely a smart move. But are they worth joining? We’ll let you decide.

FAQ

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4. Is LegalShield a scam? No, LegalShield is a legitimate business with 1.7 million members in 50 states and 4 provinces. They have provider law firms across the United States and Canada, so the legal support you get comes from a lawyer who’s well acquainted with your local laws and regulations. What does feel scammy is the lack of full disclosure about becoming an Associate and how much you can earn. If it’s such a great opportunity, why aren’t they more forthcoming with information about how to join?

5. What is LegalShield’s BBB rating? A+

6. How long has LegalShield been in business? Since 1972

7. What is LegalShield’s revenue? $457 million

8. How many LegalShield distributors are there? 287,812

9. What lawsuits have been filed? In 2001, Wyoming came down on Pre-Paid Legal Services (which was LegalShield’s original name) for making income representations that were prohibited by Wyoming law. [1] The SEC also required them to stop counting commissions as assets instead of expenses. Complying with their ruling essentially cut their reported earnings by more than half. [2] In 2005, LegalShield lost a case related to deceptive advertising and fraud and paid $9.9 million in punitive damages. [3] In 2007, the FTC began investigating their marketing, saying it was misleading. Fortunately for LegalShield, in 2010 the investigation ended without any action. [4] In 2018, LC Technology International filed a proposed class action against Harvard Risk Management and LegalShield for sending unlawful, unsolicited fax messages as part of a pyramid sales scheme. [5]

10. Comparable companies: Market America, Life Leadership, Primerica

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Overview

LegalShield was founded in 1972 under the name Sportsman’s Motor Club in Ada, Oklahoma. A couple of years later, they changed their name to Pre-Paid Legal and went public, selling its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2011, the company was acquired by MidOcean Partners, a private equity firm worth $3.5 billion, for $650 million. They then went private and changed their name to LegalShield. In 2011, before they went private, they were raking in an annual revenue of $461 million. [6]

Back in 2001, they were hit twice by the law – first by the state of Wyoming for misrepresenting distributor earnings, and again by the SEC for counting commissions as assets to inflate their stock prices. They also faced legal troubles in Missouri that year. [7]

In 2009, they were subpoenaed by the SEC for various documents which were never sent over to the SEC despite multiple demands. After that, the FTC filed a complaint against LegalShield for multiple violations, including misleading representations. [8]

Jeff Bell is LegalShield’s new CEO, and this guy is no joke.

Bell got his MBA from none other than the Wharton School of Business back in 1989. He’s worked in key positions at Ford Motors, Chrysler, NBCUniversal, Advertising Age, where he won them their first-ever Online Marketer of the Year award in 2005, and Microsoft, where he oversaw the launch of Halo 3, among other major releases, as Vice President of Global. [9, 10]

He’s got decades of experience in marketing and advertising at some of the world’s biggest corporations, and he was named as LegalShield’s new leader in 2014. [11]

Hopefully, he can replicate his success in the world of multi-level marketing. This will be his first MLM, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe his credentials can fend off the FTC.

So maybe he can turn their rep around. However, in March of 2016, he made the decision to leave the Direct Selling Association, the regulatory body that pretty much ensures that an MLM is at least semi-legit (see the full MLM rankings here).

Bell claims their decision to leave the DSA is because the DSA actually isn’t enforcing its own Code of Ethics against other MLMs who are clearly breaking it, and thus is weakening the direct selling industry as a whole. Wouldn’t be the first time. [12]

As of January 2016, LegalShield membership began a steady increase, hitting 1,612,183 members before the end of the year. Now, they’re over 1.7 million members. Smells like a comeback.

How much does LegalShield cost?

At the time of writing this, it costs $99 for a New Associate Start-Up Kit, which includes online training, materials, sponsor support, a back office, and a few other perks.

Products

LegalShield sells legal services, in case their name didn’t tip you off. They claim to offer direct and affordable access to law firms.

They have a network of almost 7,000 independent attorneys throughout the United States and Canada who offer these services. For your monthly membership fee, which varies by state but usually comes out to just under $25/month, you get:

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Credit report and credit score analysis

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Minor protection

Credit monitoring and alerts

Honestly, if you have even a halfway decent bank or own a credit card, you probably already have access to all of these services for free.

Compensation Plan

You’re selling a monthly membership, and when you get a new customer, LegalShield pays you an advance for a year’s worth of that customer’s membership. Sounds great, right? Yeah, until that customer decides to cancel, and you have to pay back a huge chunk of that advance.

The compensation plan is nowhere to be found on their website, and the information you can find is very vague. It doesn’t list any specific commission rates.

There are four ways to earn:

Personal Sales

You make a percentage on each membership you sell, which varies by rank. This is roughly what you can make, according to rank:

Junior Associate: Up to 50%

Associate: Up to $75 on each sale

Senior Associate: Up to $100 on each sale

Manager: Up to $125 on each sale

Director: Up to $150 on each sale

Executive Director: Up to $182.50 on each sale

These numbers look generous, but remember, they are advances on 12 months of membership payments. Also, it’s very, very difficult to move up even past Junior Associate, let alone all the way to director levels.

Build a Team

Team commissions are offered in the form of bonuses for every membership they sell. Exact numbers are not specified.

Residual Income

After a membership that you’ve sold lasts a year, you make a monthly commission on each month they stay active. Whether or not this commission is the same as before isn’t stated, but this is basically number one rehashed.

Performance Club

Each time you sell memberships and recruit new associates, you earn points. If you earn enough (fat chance), you can start earning cash bonuses and prizes.

Recap

The company is not without their scandals. They’ve got a pretty colorful history, to say the least.

However, it seems that the worst might be over for them. They’ve survived dozens of legal battles, and since going private, they’ve only had one claim made against them. (It looks pretty frivolous; they’ll probably pull it out.) On top of that, they’re being run by a rock star CEO, and so far, he’s doing good things for the company.

That being said, the commission plan is vague, at best. It’s really not clear how much money you’d make as an associate. One thing that is clear – you’re probably not getting rich here.

I’ve been involved with network marketing for over ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

#MLM companies #network marketing companies

0 notes

antionetterparker · 6 years ago

Text

LegalShield: Are their legal services really legal? [Review]

When you see a legal advisor embroiled in ongoing legal battles, you can’t help but wonder…

If they’re the real deal, why can’t they defend themselves?

But LegalShield may finally have their act together. The question now is whether you can make any money with this MLM.

LegalShield was once a big, bad, publicly-traded company with a network marketing opportunity on the New York Stock Exchange…until they went private faster than a celebrity in rehab.

Judging from some of their past scandals and legal troubles, going private was definitely a smart move. But are they worth joining? We’ll let you decide.

FAQ

5. What is LegalShield’s BBB rating? A+

6. How long has LegalShield been in business? Since 1972

7. What is LegalShield’s revenue? $457 million

8. How many LegalShield distributors are there? 287,812

10. Comparable companies: Market America, Life Leadership, Primerica

So should you join LegalShield?

I’m not a hater of the company at all, there’s definitely a market for legal advice and resources. But as far as passive income opportunities go, there are better options out there.

Click here for my #1 recommendation

Either way, here’s the full review on LegalShield.

Overview

Jeff Bell is LegalShield’s new CEO, and this guy is no joke.

He’s got decades of experience in marketing and advertising at some of the world’s biggest corporations, and he was named as LegalShield’s new leader in 2014. [11]

Hopefully, he can replicate his success in the world of multi-level marketing. This will be his first MLM, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe his credentials can fend off the FTC.

As of January 2016, LegalShield membership began a steady increase, hitting 1,612,183 members before the end of the year. Now, they’re over 1.7 million members. Smells like a comeback.

How much does LegalShield cost?

At the time of writing this, it costs $99 for a New Associate Start-Up Kit, which includes online training, materials, sponsor support, a back office, and a few other perks.

Products

LegalShield sells legal services, in case their name didn’t tip you off. They claim to offer direct and affordable access to law firms.

Legal Advice: If you ever need advice or consultation from a legal representative, you always have one at your service.

Legal Representation: In the case that you should need legal representation, you have their independent attorneys at your disposal.

Automotive Defense: Accident defense and moving violation assistance.

Familial and IRS Legal Services: This covers everything from divorce and name changes to IRS audits.

Considering legal advice can cost hundreds, and representation from an attorney can cost anywhere from $150-$500 per hour, it’s not a bad deal.

The company also now sells identity theft protection services starting at $9.95/month. The basic plan covers you and a spouse, and includes:

Credit report and credit score analysis

Credit restoration

Unlimited ID theft consultations

Minor protection

Credit monitoring and alerts

Honestly, if you have even a halfway decent bank or own a credit card, you probably already have access to all of these services for free.

Compensation Plan

The compensation plan is nowhere to be found on their website, and the information you can find is very vague. It doesn’t list any specific commission rates.

There are four ways to earn:

Personal Sales

You make a percentage on each membership you sell, which varies by rank. This is roughly what you can make, according to rank:

Junior Associate: Up to 50%

Associate: Up to $75 on each sale

Senior Associate: Up to $100 on each sale

Manager: Up to $125 on each sale

Director: Up to $150 on each sale

Executive Director: Up to $182.50 on each sale

Build a Team

Team commissions are offered in the form of bonuses for every membership they sell. Exact numbers are not specified.

Residual Income

Performance Club

Each time you sell memberships and recruit new associates, you earn points. If you earn enough (fat chance), you can start earning cash bonuses and prizes.

Recap

The company is not without their scandals. They’ve got a pretty colorful history, to say the least.

That being said, the commission plan is vague, at best. It’s really not clear how much money you’d make as an associate. One thing that is clear – you’re probably not getting rich here.

I’ve been involved with network marketing for over ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

via https://mlmcompanies.org/legalshield/

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

Link

Here’s one thing President Trump and Stormy Daniels have in common: When you insult them, they’re going to fire back.

So when Trump called Daniels “horseface” on Twitter Tuesday morning, the porn actress, director, and writer was quick to reply in kind:

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present your president. In addition to his…umm…shortcomings, he has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women and lack of self control on Twitter AGAIN! And perhaps a penchant for bestiality. Game on, Tiny. https://t.co/6DpDD5ELtj

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) October 16, 2018

Trump was happy because a judge had just dismissed Daniels’s defamation lawsuit against him, requiring her to pay his legal fees. But as Vox’s Emily Stewart notes, the legal battles between the two aren’t over — Daniels is still suing Trump over the nondisclosure agreement she signed in 2016, agreeing not to talk about the affair she says she had with Trump. That case still poses a threat to Trump because he could be deposed, potentially opening him up to charges of perjury.

And while their case winds its way through the courts, Daniels is proving the perfect opponent for Trump — because the two have a lot of similarities. Like Trump, Daniels understands power dynamics, and she can be a bit of a bully when she wants to be. Like Trump, she never backs down from a Twitter fight. And like Trump, she’s got nothing to lose from an American public that already disrespects her.

One big difference between the two, though, is that while Trump routinely punches down at targets much smaller and weaker than him, Daniels is punching up at Trump — and though she hasn’t quite landed a blow yet, she’s not leaving the ring.

If there’s one thing Trump’s critics and supporters agree on, it’s that he can be a bully. But soon after they met, Daniels says she essentially bullied him.

After an event in Lake Tahoe in 2006, Daniels writes in her book Full Disclosure, Trump invited her back to his hotel room for dinner.

“We started talking, which meant he proceeded to go on and on and on without asking me anything about myself,” Daniels writes. “Plus, I was freaking hungry. I needed a bowl of pretzels, at least, if I was going to sit through this.”

When Trump showed her a magazine with himself on the cover — still with no dinner in sight — Daniels writes that she’d had enough.

“Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it,” she says she told him. Then, she writes, she actually did it.

“It was a power moment, not at all sexual,” Daniels writes — and to some degree, it worked. Trump seemed to have a newfound respect for her, calling her “a woman to be reckoned with.”

Trump, known for pushing other people around — as when he appeared to dangle the job of secretary of state in front of Mitt Romney before offering it to Rex Tillerson — had, at least momentarily, met his match.

Daniels ended up having sex with Trump, she writes, even though she didn’t want to and wasn’t attracted to him (she has always been clear that she considers the encounter consensual).

But for a moment, at least, she had a sense of power over him. Daniels revisited the incident in a recent interview with the Cut. “I checked him hard,” she said. “I was a fucking bitch to him.”

Trump, of course, is famous for his Twitter warfare — see, for instance, his latest screeds against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), whom he recently called “Pocahontas (the bad version).”

But when it comes to trading insults online, he may have met his match in Daniels. As she told the Cut, she enjoys a good Twitter fight. “It’s great sport for me,” she said. “That’s how I entertain myself on flights now.”

So when Trump called her “horseface,” she didn’t miss a beat, firing back and hitting him where it hurts: his size.

Trump is famously sensitive about the size of his hands. And in the past, he’s felt the need to reassure Americans about the size of his penis, saying during a primary debate in 2016 that he had “no problem” in that department.

So Daniels calling him “tiny” isn’t just a low blow — it’s also a way for her to play on Trump’s well-established insecurities. (In Full Disclosure, she famously described the president’s penis as looking “like the mushroom character from Mario Kart,” effectively ruining the popular Nintendo game for many.)

Trump prides himself on being able to spot people’s weaknesses. But Daniels spotted a weakness in him early on.

“He was just run-of-the-mill insecure,” she writes, “which I find happens a lot with people with money that they didn’t earn themselves. They harbor this inner self-esteem problem that they try to mask by overcompensating. That’s him to a tee.”

Trump is sometimes called “Teflon” for his ability to weather all manner of scandal — starting with the Access Hollywood tape and continuing through a recent New York Times investigation into his taxes, he’s survived revelations that would have tanked the careers of other politicians. In part, this is because people’s opinions of him are already so low. Americans — including some of those who voted for him — already see him as untrustworthy and unfit to be president. And he’s done and said so many outlandish or offensive things that it’s hard for any new information about him to truly surprise anyone.

In a way, Daniels has a similar Teflon quality. As a porn director and performer, she’s part of a segment of American society that already gets next to no respect. In a Gallup poll earlier this year, 55 percent of Americans said they think pornography is morally wrong (though the percentage who think it’s acceptable is on the rise, a fact that, according to Gallup, could be linked to Daniels’s growing fame). And Daniels is routinely targeted by critics who try to shame her for her career choices.

But she isn’t ashamed of stripping or doing porn, and when trolls attack her, she reacts with pride and humor. When one Twitter critic called her “classless” and “disgusting,” she responded, “since I can put both feet behind my head while licking my nipple, I’ll give you ‘classless.’”

“They’ll be like, ‘Whore,’” she told the Cut, talking about her haters. “And I’m like, ‘Yes?’ I mean, I guess I feel the most powerful when someone tries to take my power or belittle me or insult me and it doesn’t work. I’ve sort of taken all their power away from them.”

Daniels’s confidence also takes the power away from one of Trump’s favorite techniques for cutting down women — slut-shaming. During the campaign, for instance, he accused former Miss Universe Alicia Machado of having a sex tape after she criticized him. But Daniels isn’t embarrassed about having sex on camera, and she can’t be slut-shamed because she rejects the entire paradigm under which a woman being “slutty” is a bad thing.

As Vox’s Emily Stewart puts it, “the slurs hurled at women to humiliate or belittle them don’t seem to work on Daniels. She disarms taunters, and they’re the ones who end up hurt.”

Like Trump, Daniels in some ways has nothing to lose when it comes to public opinion. “Because I am an adult film actress, director, and dancer,” she writes in Full Disclosure, “when I meet people they usually have some nagging question about what gives me the nerve to think I can do something. How do I do porn or take off my clothes onstage in clubs? Or take on the president of the United States?”

But if there’s one thing Daniels has, it’s nerve. She’s made her living in the sex industry, and she owns that fact. So attempts to silence her by impugning her sexual virtue — a time-honored technique for shutting women up — just roll right off her back.

According to Daniels, even Trump recognized that he had something in common with her. In Full Disclosure, she writes that neither drinks alcohol — Trump because “people make poor financial decisions when they’ve been drinking” and Daniels because “I can’t tell you how many clubs I’ve been in where girls get drunk and lose their money.” When he found this out, Daniels writes, Trump told her that their businesses were “kind of a lot alike.”

Where the two part ways, though, is in how they use their particular skills. Daniels enjoys taking potshots at people who insult her on Twitter — and, of course, at the president. While she writes in Full Disclosure that she didn’t vote in 2016, she’s now solidly anti-Trump, telling the Cut, “I found out about the immigration stuff — the images of the kids in camps — and that was the big moment when I was like, ‘Okay, fuck this motherfucker, let’s go, ladies.’”

From the moment she met Trump, Daniels has been using her abilities — her way of spotting a weakness, her quick Twitter wit — to punch up, first at a wealthy man many years her senior (“this guy was more than twice my age,” she writes of their hotel room meeting), and later at the president of the United States.

Trump, meanwhile, uses his considerable bullying power to punch down — at Daniels, at the many women who have accused him of sexual assault or harassment, and at a variety of other ordinary Americans who have considerably less power than he does. While Daniels seems to relish finding the weak spots in a powerful man, Trump, both with his policies and with his public statements, has consistently targeted people weaker than he is.

It’s too soon to tell whether Daniels will prove a David to Trump’s Goliath — whether her remaining lawsuit will actually result in a damaging deposition from him. Still, it’s all but certain that she’ll keep fighting.

“I know that the deck has always been stacked against me,” she writes in Full Disclosure, “and there is absolutely no reason for me to have made it to where I am, right here talking to you. Except that maybe the universe loves an underdog as much as I do.”

Original Source -> In Stormy Daniels, Trump may have met his match

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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kgbfbi-blog · 7 years ago

Text

TRUMP AND THE ALT-RIGHT.

TRUMP’S LACK OF CRITICISM OF THE ALT-RIGHT, KLAN AND NEO-NAZIS IN HIS BASE:

Neo-nazis have applauded Donald Trump’s response to the violent clashes between white supremacists and anti-fascists which swept Charlottesville and left three people dead.

The US President has refused to condemn the actions of the neo-Nazis, skinheads, and members of the Ku Klux Klan who descended on the Virginia city on Saturday yelling racial abuse, brandishing flaming torches, carrying assault rifles and wearing paramilitary clothing.

Speaking from a stage in a golf clubhouse, President Trump decried “violence on all sides” rather than explicitly taking aim at far-right extremists.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides,” he said. “On many sides.”

The billionaire property developer then left the conference, turning a deaf ear to reporters' shouted questions, including whether he wanted the support of white nationalists who have allied themselves with him or whether he deemed the violence to be terrorism.

But while Mr Trump has sparked widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum for failing to denounce the largest gathering of white nationalists in America for decades, his response has been actively celebrated by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

The founder of Daily Stormer, an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist site which considers itself to be part of the alt-right movement, hailed the fact President Trump “outright refused to disavow” the gathering of white supremacists.

“People saying he cucked are shills and kikes,” said its editor Andrew Anglin. “He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room.”

Another Daily Stormer commenter said: ”Trump comments were good. He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate... on both sides! So he implied the Antifa are haters.”

Antifa, shorthand for antifascist organisations, refers to a loose coalition of decentralised, grassroots groups opposed to the many guises of fascism which began in Europe in the 1920s.

“There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all,” the Trump supporter continued. “He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about white nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.”

Richard Spencer, a leading white supremacist who rose to fame for being punched at an anti-Trump protest, was similarly supportive of President Trump’s response to the violence which erupted between those opposed to the removal of a statue from a local park of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee and counter-protesters.

After Mr Trump tweeted earlier on Saturday “We ALL must be united and condemn all that hate stands for,” Spencer, who is credited with coining the term “alt-right”, replied: “Did Trump just denounce Antifa?”

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to assume all white supremacists have celebrated President Trump’s reaction to the violence. David Duke, the former head of the Ku Klux Klan who found himself at the centre of controversy after Mr Trump failed to immediately condemn his endorsement during the 2016 presidential campaign, was less effusive.

Mr Duke, who in Charlottesville, said: “I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror and remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists”.

He had been responding to President Trump saying: “We ALL must be united and condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Let's come together as one!”

Chaos broke out on the streets of Charlottesville as tensions spilled into street clashes with rocks and pepper spray. A 32-year-old women was killed after a car was driven at speed into a group of anti-fascist protesters and two policemen died in a helicopter crash while taking part in efforts to restore peace to the area.

A state of emergency was announced by the local and state governments with police declaring the “Unite the Right” rally an unlawful assembly and demanding the crowds to disperse.

Fellow Republicans have slammed President Trump, who spent his presidential bid repeatedly attacking Obama and Clinton for failing to label terrorist attacks as such, for his response to the furore.

“Mr President - we must call evil by its name,” said Republican Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The alt-right - a political movement which has been accused of racism, antisemitism and misogyny and of sharing an ideology with far-right parties such as the French National Front - gained increasing prominence during Mr Trump’s presidential bid and has continued to do so since his arrival in the White House.

During the campaign, Hillary Clinton accused President Trump of making the alt-right “mainstream“ and attacked the movement as ”racist ideas ... anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women ideas”.

White House Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon, is the former executive chair of far-right online publication Breitbart Newswhich he described as “the platform for the alt-right” last year.

While President Trump has attempted to distance himself from the so-called “alt-right” movement, its members have put their weight behind the former reality TV star and heralded him as their leader.

“We are determined to take this country back. We're gonna fulfil the promises of Donald Trump,” Mr Duke said in an interview with The Indianapolis Star on Saturday in Charlottesville. “That's why we voted for Donald Trump because he said he's going to take our country back.”

ISLAMIC AUTO TERROR VERSUS CHRISTIAN AUTO TERROR: TRUMP’S VIEW:

President Donald Trump condemned hate "on many sides" in response to violent white nationalist protests and a terror attack Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides," Trump said during a short statement from his private golf club in New Jersey. "It has been going on for a long time in our country -- not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America."

The President did not mention white nationalists and the alt-right movement in his remarks, and later called for a "study" of the "situation."

At least one person was killed and 19 injured when a speeding car slammed into another car that was navigating through a throng of counterprotesters, according to a statement released on the City of Charlottesville's verified Twitter account.

Trump offered condolences to the family of the woman killed in the crash and those who were injured.

"Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today, and best regards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad!" he tweeted.

Trump billed the event in which he made the remarks on Saturday as a press conference but failed to take any questions. Reporters attempted to ask the President whether he condemns white nationalists or if he considers the car slamming into counterprotesters terrorism. Trump, in the past, has been quick to label foreign events terrorism and has slammed fellow politicians for not quickly labeling attacks as terrorism.

At one point the President also touted economic improvements, saying the nation's unemployment rate was the lowest in 17 years. Trump siaid he was dismayed by the violence: "We have so many incredible things happening in our country, so when I watch Charlottesville, to me it is very, very sad."

Trump closed his remarks on Charlottesville urging people to remember "no matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are all Americans first."

"We love our country, we love our God, we love our flag, we are proud of our country, we are proud of who we are," he said. "So, we want to get this situation straightened out in Charlottesville and we want to study it, and we want to see what we are doing wrong as a country where things like this can happen."

Asked what Trump meant by saying "on many sides," a White House official also pointed a finger at the counterprotesters.

"The President was condemning hatred, bigotry and violence from all sources and all sides. There was violence between protesters and counterprotesters today," the official said.

Demonstrators clashed on the streets of Charlottesville on Saturday morning ahead of a white nationalist rally, with counter-protesters and right-wing nationalist groups converging on the college town in the latest chapter in the United States' debate over race and identity.

The protests were precipitated by the city's government deciding to remove symbols of its confederate past, including a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Similar protests happened in May when New Orleans officials decided to remove confederate statues.

Response criticized by both sides

Democrats and Republicans alike slammed Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, arguing the President's statement lacked "the absolute moral clarity that we need from the President of the United states at times like this," as Scott Jennings, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, said.

Trump's fellow Republican politicians also slammed the President.

"Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism," tweeted Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who ran for president against Trump in 2016, tweeted, "very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists."

Former Vice President Joe Biden tweeted simply: "There is only one side. #charlottesville."

The White House said Saturday that it was in touch with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's office and that White House homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert's team has been in touch with local authorities.

Before his on-camera statement, Trump, who is on his 17-day vacation in New Jersey, urged people to "come together as one" in response to the protests but did not explicitly mention the white nationalist origins of the conflict.

"We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for," he wrote on Twitter. "There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!"

Trump, who also signed a Veterans Affairs health care bill Saturday afternoon, later tweeted: "Am in Bedminster for meetings & press conference on V.A. & all that we have done, and are doing, to make it better-but Charlottesville sad!"

Vice President Mike Pence joined Trump in strongly condemning the protests.

"I stand with @POTUS against hate & violence," he tweeted. "U.S is greatest when we join together & oppose those seeking to divide us. #Charlottesville."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions also condemned the violence, saying it "is totally contrary to American values and can never be tolerated."

Sessions said he had been in contact with Department of Justice agents assisting at the scene and state officials.

"We will continue to support our state and local officers on the ground in any way possible," he said. "We stand united behind the President in condemning the violence in Charlottesville and any message of hate and intolerance."

First lady Melania Trump was the first White House occupant to respond to the violence, tweeting 45 minutes before her husband that "our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence."

White House adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, chimed in Sunday morning with a call for unity. "There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis," she tweeted. "We must all come together as Americans -- and be one country UNITED." Trump's working vacation at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey has so far been consumed by roiling tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Trump's time away from the White House has been anything but calm, with the President consistently responding to threats from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has threatened to launch missiles near the US territory of Guam.

White nationalist groups who have come to be known at the "alt-right" drafted off Trump's candidacy in 2016 and rose to national prominence by tying themselves to Trump's message.

On Saturday in Virginia, according to a video posted on Twitter by a photojournalist from The Indianapolis Star, David Duke -- a prominent former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran for Senate in Louisiana in 2016 -- tied the protests in Virginia to Trump.

"This represents a turning point for the people of this country," Duke said. "We are determined to take this country back. We're gonna fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in. That's why we voted for Donald Trump because he said he's going to take our country back."

Duke slammed Trump's response to the protests on Saturday, tweeting that Trump should "take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists."

"So, after decades of White Americans being targeted for discriminated & anti-White hatred, we come together as a people, and you attack us," Duke wrote. I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.

So, after decades of White Americans being targeted for discriminated & anti-White hatred, we come together as a people, and you attack us?

Trump drew flack from critics and Democrats during the campaign for not fulsomely disavowing the alt-right and white supremacists.

After the election, in a November 2016 interview with The New York Times, Trump disavowed the movement and said he did not intend to energize the group.

"I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group," Trump told a group of Times reporters and columnists during a meeting at the newspaper's headquarters in New York.

He added: "It's not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why."

DOES TRUMP TRULY REPRESENT THE ALT-RIGHT?

Would any past president have not understood the need to read the collection of racists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and the euphemistically labeled “white nationalists” out of the company of decent men and women, rather than make morally bankrupt talk of violence “on many sides” and dog-whistling about the need to “cherish our history”? Would any past president have compounded the felony with a dismissive, clumsy tweet—(“Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today, and best regards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad!”)

But then, we have never had a president, of either party, or any political persuasion, so utterly disconnected from any understanding of our national history, of the still-unresolved fights over what it means to be a “real” American. Nor have we ever had a president who combines staggering historical and political ignorance with language skills that rank him somewhere around a developmentally challenged nine-year-old.

Consider how past Republican presidents have dealt with controversies where a political ally has crossed a clear bright line:

In 1976, on a flight after the Republican convention, conservative pop singer Pat Boone asked Gerald Ford’s Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz why the Republican Party couldn’t attract more black voters. “I’ll tell you what the coloreds want,” Butz said. “It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.” When the comment was published in Rolling Stone—the author of the piece was Watergate figure John Dean—Butz was forced out of the Cabinet.

In September 1981, Interior Secretary James Watt was addressing breakfast meeting of lobbyists at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Speaking about the different advisory panels offering guidance to the department, he said of one: “I got a black, two Jews, a woman and a cripple. And I’ve got talent.” The remark got hearty laughter from his audience, but the insulting nature of the comment drew enough fire that he left the Cabinet a month later.

On December 5, 2002, Senate Majority leader Trent Lott spoke at the 100th birthday celebration of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had run for president in 1948 on a segregationist third-party ticket. Lott said: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we [the state of Mississippi] voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either.” It was likely meant to be a small piece of flattery, but the idea that American would have been better off with a segregationist president stuck a nerve, and President George W. Bush rebuked Lott. Speaking to a mostly black audience at a religious meeting in Philadelphia, he said: “Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive, and it is wrong … recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized, and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals.” Shortly thereafter, Lott stepped down from his post.

What these incidents illustrates something more than the willingness of a president to reject offensive remarks from their own side of the political aisle. They reflect an understanding that a president is not just the head of government, but the head of state as well. Ford, Reagan, and Bush knew full well that the overwhelming majority of blacks voters would not be voting for them, but they could not permit such remarks to be deemed “acceptable.” These Republican presidents showed they understood that there were not “many sides” to a controversy when someone gives the back of his hand to one group of Americans or another, much less when someone turns his bigotry into a murderous attack on protesters.

Indeed, there was a time, not that long ago, when Republicans would actually campaign for the votes of African-Americans. Ronald Reagan gave a memorable speech to the Urban League in 1980, detailing what he called the failure of liberalism to make life better for American blacks. George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign speeches talked extensively about the failing schools in minority neighborhoods and “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

And Trump? The simplest explanation is that “nationalism”—an outlook championed by Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, and celebrated in his acceptance and inaugural speeches—is what’s behind Trump’s unwillingness to condemn the racists at Charlottesville. But think about it: Would any halfway rational political mind think that in condemning neo-Nazis and Klansmen, you would risk losing any part of your broader base? That crowd of losers in Charlottesville was tiny—no more than a few hundred people. Is there anything more than a small fragment of Trump’s supporters who genuinely sympathize with the white hoods and swaztikas? (Some readers will no doubt answer yes, I know. I think otherwise.)

The more convincing explanation for Trump’s moral failure is that he is, and always has been, completely disconnected from any understanding of the American political tradition. It is why, uniquely among chief executives, he almost never quotes a past president or political figure or thinker, nor references any part of the country’s past. For Trump, there isno past; only himself, rising as a self-creation out of the mist. He feels no need to speak against the poison of bigotry because he has no clue about how that poison has infected our past, and still infects our present.

Among the many ways that Donald Trump is the most manifestly unfit president in American history, put this one near the top of the list.

SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:

MOST OF THE LOCALS OF CHARLOTTESVILLE SAID THAT THE NEO-NAZI AGITATORS WERE STRANGERS. IF THEY WERE FROM OUT-OF-STATE, WHY DID THE POLICE ALLOW THEM TO DISPERSE AFTER THE RIOT AND CAR ATTACK?

DID YOU KNOW: STATUES SUCH AS THAT OF ROBERT E. LEE AND FLYING THE CONFEDERATE FLAG WOULD HAVE BEEN SEEN AS TREASONOUS AND WOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED AFTER THE CIVIL WAR. THEY WERE ACTUALLY ERECTED BY RACIST PRESSURE GROUPS DURING THE SEGREGATIONIST PERIOD OF THE SIXTIES AS A FORM OF ANTI-INTEGRATIONALIST PROPAGANDA.

WHY WASN’T THIS CAR ATTACK AT CHARLOTTESVILLE IMMEDIATELY ANNOUNCED IN THE US MEDIA AS AN ACT OF RIGHT-WING CHRISTIAN TERROR? THE FIRST TIME THIS WAS BROACHED WAS ON SUNDAY’S NBC ‘MEET THE PRESS’. IS IT BECAUSE THE U.S.A AS A CHRISTIAN TERRORISTIC NATION (CREATION OF AL-QAEDA, ABU GHRAIB PRISON CAMP, GUANTANAMO BAY PRISON CAMP, SUPPLYING SYRIAN REBELS) CANNOT RECOGNIZE ITS OWN REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR?

WHAT OF THE ATTACK VEHICLE USED BY JAMES R. FIELDS JNR. IT APPEARS TOO HIGH-POWERED AND DISGUISED WITH NON-DESCRIPT MATT-GREY AND TINTED WINDOWS? IT SEEMS COMPLEX FOR THE UNDER-RESOURCED FIELDS WHO WAS RELYING ON HIS NOT-SO -SURPRISED MOTHER FOR AN APARTMENT. ALTHOUGH IT IS CONFIRMED FIELDS JNR. OWNED THE CAR, WHO SOUPED IT UP AND MASKED IN THE WINDSCREEN? FIELDS JNR.’S MOTHER ALLUDED TO POLITICAL RUCTIONS BETWEEN HER AND HER SON CONFIRMED BY SCHOOL TEACHERS THAT FIELDS WAS AN ALT-RIGHT FANATIC. WHILST THIS Q-CAR*** THEORY IS BEING ESPOUSED CURRENTLY BY THE FRIGHTENED ALT-RIGHT TO DEFLECT CRITICISM AND GOVERNMENT INQUIRY, IT SHOULD NOT BE DISPENSED WITH. WHO EXACTLY WAS SUPPLYING THE MODIFICATIONS TO, AND TACTICS OF, FIELDS JNR’S VEHICLE?

*** ”Q-Car” - I have christened the new weapon in low-intensity, “lone-wolf” attacks using cars and trucks as ‘Q-Cars’. In World War One, Q-Ships were disguised, ocean-going tramp steamers with hidden guns and depth-charges ready to spring into action to catch surfacing U-Boats by surprise. It is only a matter of time until ‘lone wolves’ experiment with vehicular-mounted rams, blades, explosives, flame weapons, chemical weapons, guns and armor. This will be similar to the Narco Tank experience of Mexico since 2010 where drug cartels have armored-up behemoth vehicles and armed them heavily to take on the Mexican military and run drugs into the U.S.

TRUMP IS NOT BRIGHT ENOUGH TO BE A NAZI. HE IS A LOW-RENT RACIST USED TO NICKEL-AND-DIMING BLACKS OVER THEIR GHETTOIZED SLUMLORD HOUSING. HE IS NOT CUT OUT FOR WHAT NAZIS WOULD HAVE IT TO BE AS THE “SUPERIOR” RACIAL THINKING AND HYGIENE (HE HAS MARRIED A FOREIGNER OF ILL-REPUTE AND HAS A JEW AS A SON-IN-LAW) REQUIRED OF NATIONAL SOCIALIST ARISOPHY, ARMANISM AND THEOZOOLOGY.**

** Armanism and Ariosophy are the names of ideological systems of an esoteric nature, pioneered by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930.

In 1905, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels published his book Theozoölogie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron (Theozoology, or the Science of the Sodomite-Apelings and the Divine Electron) in which he advocated sterilization of the sick and the "lower races" as well as forced labour for "castrated chandals", and glorified the "Aryan race" as "Gottmenschen" ("god-men"). Lanz justified his esoteric racial ideology by attempting to give it a Biblical foundation; according to him, Eve, whom he described as initially being divine, involved herself with a demon and gave birth to the "lower races" in the process. Furthermore, he claimed that this led to blonde women being attracted primarily to "dark men", something that only could be stopped by "racial demixing" so that the "Aryan-Christian master humans" could "once again rule the dark-skinned beastmen" and ultimately achieve divinity. A copy of this book was sent to Swedish poet August Strindberg, from whom Lanz received an enthusiastic reply in which he was described as a "prophetic voice".

One year later, in 1905, he founded the magazine Ostara, Briefbücherei der Blonden und Mannesrechtler, of which he became the sole author and editor in 1908. Lanz himself claimed to have up to 100,000 subscribers, but it is generally agreed that this figure is grossly exaggerated. Readers of this publication included Adolf Hitler, Dietrich Eckart and the British Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener among others. Lanz claimed he was visited by the young Hitler in 1909, whom he supplied with two missing issues of the magazine.

As a student of Guido von List, Lanz further expanded his theories; other influences included Otto Weininger, of whom Lanz was a fervent follower.

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BIG PICTURE: Chaos, drama as Trump returns — G7 communique: U.S. is lone climate abstainer — Trump: decision on Paris next week — REMEMBERING ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

Good Saturday morning. THE BIG NEWS FROM SICILY — U.S. ON ITS OWN ON CLIMATE — “U.S. is the lone G7 holdout on supporting Paris climate deal,” by David Herszenhorn and Tara Palmeri in Taormina, Italy: “President Donald Trump refused to join his counterparts in the G7 Saturday in a pledge to uphold the 195-nation Paris accord on climate change, breaking the unified front of the world’s most exclusive geopolitical club. …

“While the declaration included remarkable language, highlighting that the U.S. stood apart, the other allies expressed some relief that Trump had not outright rejected the accord and said they remained hopeful he would come around to supporting the Paris agreement in the coming days. But Trump’s refusal to take a position while in Sicily has shaken the unity among the G7, the world’s most exclusive geopolitical club. The U.S. has also raised doubts about the G7’s longstanding language opposing protectionism in all forms. The Trump administration blocked similar language in a G20 communique earlier this year.” http://politi.co/2qmj1Tb

Story Continued Below

— FROM THE G7 COMMUNIQUE: “The United States of America is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics. Understanding this process, the Heads of State and of Government of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom and the Presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission reaffirm their strong commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement, as previously stated at the Ise-Shima Summit.” See the full document http://bit.ly/2rJ6NEj

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

FROM SICILY — @JenniferJJacobs: “It’s an unprecedented step for final G7 statement to give the U.S. its own section. U.S. not in unison with other 6 on Paris climate deal.”

TWEETS FROM @realDonaldTrump, with the geotag Taormina, Sicily, Italy — at 5:58 a.m.: “Big G7 meetings today. Lots of very important matters under discussion. First on the list, of course, is terrorism. #G7Taormina.” … at 6:03 a.m.: “Many NATO countries have agreed to step up payments considerably, as they should. Money is beginning to pour in- NATO will be much stronger.” … at 8:17 a.m.: “I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!”

— NEXT WEEK is typically a slow week in Washington, due to the Memorial Day holiday. Trump’s decision should spice things up.

QUITE THE HEADLINE! — AP: “What if US quits climate deal? Doesn’t look good for Earth,” by Seth Borenstein http://apne.ws/2qpJviW

THE PORTRAIT: DRAMA. LOTS OF IT — IN THE NEWS THIS MORNING: Donald Trump’s campaign has been asked to turn over all Russia-related documents. Jared Kushner had undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador. And the Russian ambassador discussed with Kushner a secret communication channel to Trump world. THE PRESIDENT is scheduled to return to the White House around 10:45 p.m.

A DRUMBEAT OF SCOOPS …

–WAPO: “Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin,” by Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous and Greg Miller: “Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

“Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications. The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

“The White House disclosed the meeting only in March, playing down its significance. But people familiar with the matter say the FBI now considers the encounter, as well as another meeting Kushner had with a Russian banker, to be of investigative interest. Kislyak reportedly was taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate — a proposal that would have carried security risks for Moscow as well as the Trump team.” http://wapo.st/2rrNteO

— BEHIND THE SCENES: “The Post was first alerted in mid-December to the meeting by an anonymous letter, which said, among other things, that Kushner had talked to Kislyak about setting up the communications channel. This week, officials who reviewed the letter … said the portion about the secret channel was consistent with their understanding of events.”

–@nycsouthpaw: “Greg Miller says on MSNBC the anonymous letter came to Ellen Nakashima and appeared to have come from someone inside the transition.”

–NYT’s Maggie Haberman, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo: “It is unclear who first proposed the communications channel, but the people familiar with the meeting said the idea was to have Mr. Flynn speak directly with a senior military official in Moscow to discuss Syria and other security issues. The communications channel was never set up, the people said.” http://nyti.ms/2qtJute

— REUTERS: “Exclusive: Trump son-in-law had undisclosed contacts with Russian envoy – sources,” by Ned Parker and Jonathan Landay: “President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had at least three previously undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, seven current and former U.S. officials told Reuters. Those contacts included two phone calls between April and November last year, two of the sources said. By early this year, Kushner had become a focus of the FBI investigation into whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, said two other sources – one current and one former law enforcement official.

“Kushner initially had come to the attention of FBI investigators last year as they began scrutinizing former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s connections with Russian officials, the two sources said. �� After the Nov. 8 election, Kushner and Flynn also discussed with Kislyak the idea of creating a back channel between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could have bypassed diplomats and intelligence agencies.” http://reut.rs/2rIxkS6

— KUSHNER’S LAWYER RESPONDS: “‘Mr. Kushner participated in thousands of calls in this time period. He has no recollection of the calls as described,’ Kushner’s lawyer Jamie Gorelick [of WilmerHale] told POLITICO in a statement, responding to a Reuters report about Kushner’s contacts with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. ‘We have asked (Reuters) for the dates of such alleged calls so we may look into it and respond, but we have not received such information.’” http://politi.co/2qtFR6K

— THIS IS GETTING BAD FOR JARED. And there’s no shortage of snickering from haters and detractors inside Trump’s White House.

— BOB COSTA IN ON THE ACTION: “Senate Intelligence Committee requests Trump campaign documents”: “The Senate Intelligence Committee … has asked President Trump’s political organization to gather and produce all Russia-related documents, emails and phone records going back to his campaign’s launch in June 2015, according to two people briefed on the request.

“The letter from the Senate arrived at Trump’s campaign committee last week and was addressed to the group’s treasurer. Since then, some former staffers have been notified and asked to cooperate … The demand follows a Senate request months earlier for the campaign committee to preserve documents. Dozens of former staffers are expected to be contacted in the coming days to make sure they are aware of what they are required to produce and how to submit those documents.” http://wapo.st/2s1f2sG

— NYT, TOO: “Russian Once Tied to Trump Aide Seeks Immunity to Cooperate With Congress,” by Barry Meier and Jesse Drucker: “Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch once close to President Trump’s former campaign manager, has offered to cooperate with congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but lawmakers are unwilling to accept his conditions, according to congressional officials. Mr. Deripaska’s offer comes amid increased attention to his ties to Paul Manafort, who is one of several Trump associates under F.B.I. scrutiny for possible collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign. … Senate and House panels turned him down because of concerns that immunity agreements create complications for federal criminal investigators.” http://nyti.ms/2rrDA0Q

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INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE — “Trump Pushing Big White House Changes as Russia Crisis Grows,” by WSJ’s Mike Bender and Peter Nicholas: “President Donald Trump is actively discussing major changes in the White House, including having lawyers vet his tweets and shaking up his top staff, as he grapples with the fallout from probes into his campaign’s dealings with Russia, according to several senior administration officials and outside advisers. … Meetings devoted to White House operations are scheduled for next week, after the president returns from his overseas trip, … One major change under consideration would see the president’s social media posts vetted by a team of lawyers, who would decide if any needed to be adjusted or curtailed. The idea, said one of Mr. Trump’s advisers, is to create a system so that tweets ‘don’t go from the president’s mind out to the universe.’ …

“Other changes under discussion include removing communications director Mike Dubke and installing Sarah Sanders as the main spokesman instead of Mr. Spicer. … Mr. Trump’s return to Washington will mark the end of a period which, White House staffers said, brought some relief from the hectic pace of the news surrounding the administration and the Russia investigation. Some noted that it gave them a rare time to eat dinner at home.” http://on.wsj.com/2qpuzBo

ON THE HILL … — “Sources: Nunes still has say in issuing subpoenas in House Intel’s Russia inquiry,” by CNN’s Manu Raju and Tom LoBianco: “In a private meeting this week, House intelligence committee members discussed their plans to move ahead with the Russia investigation into meddling in the US election. And the GOP members made clear that the current rules of the committee still apply: That Nunes can issue the subpoenas ‘upon consultation with’ ranking Democrat Adam Schiff or by a vote of the full committee, according to several sources familiar with the matter.” http://cnn.it/2qZchcL

TRUMP’S SATURDAY — THE PRESIDENT is giving remarks this morning to military personnel at Naval Air Station Sigonella. From pooler Mike Shear of the New York Times: “[S]picer said that the POTUS speech would [likely] include some trip wrap-up stuff and ‘relationship’ stuff relating to other countries. So not just a message to the troops.”

THE WORLD STAGE — “Trump brings his solo act to Europe: The president has seemed less at ease among his fellow world leaders in group settings than he is in one-on-one encounters,” by Tara Palmeri and David Herszenhorn in Taormina, Sicily: “While he avoided any major gaffes or serious diplomatic breaches, Trump’s lack of rapport with European leaders raises serious questions about his ability to effectively team up with critical U.S. allies. ‘Like when there’s a new strange kid in the class nobody likes,’ said a senior EU official who was briefed on the closed NATO meetings in Brussels. ‘You behave civilly when teachers [media] watch but don’t spend time with him in private because he’s so different.’” http://politi.co/2s10dpV

IF YOU READ ONE THING – N.Y. MAGAZINE COVER, “She’s Okay. How About You?” by Rebecca Traister (online headline: “Hillary Clinton Is Furious. And Resigned. And Funny. And Worried. The surreal post-election life of the woman who would have been president): “Almost everywhere Clinton goes, it seems, someone starts crying. It’s not just friends and staffers. And though it was more intense in the weeks immediately following the election, it hasn’t entirely let up. At restaurants, in grocery stores, on planes, and in the woods, there are lines of people wanting selfies, hugs, comfort. … This is the dynamic that is perhaps the most intense for Clinton. “Not so much anymore, but in the immediate aftermath, from after the election to probably the first of the year,” she says, ‘I had people literally seeking absolution.’ … ‘“I’m so sorry I didn’t vote. I didn’t think you needed me.” …

“In particular, Clinton recalls one night at the theater. ‘It was intermission, and a woman came over holding the hand of a young woman. She literally dragged her daughter over to see me. And she said, “My daughter has something to tell you … Tell her.” And this girl says to me, “I am really sorry; I didn’t think you needed my vote and I didn’t vote.” And her mother says [yelling], “Yes, she didn’t vote! You didn’t vote! You’re part of the problem!” I said, “Okay, well, next time I hope you’ll vote.””

— A FASCINATING BITE: “I ask her if she’s ever been in therapy, and she shakes her head. ‘Unh-uh. No. I have not.’ When I express surprise, she allows, ‘Well, we had some marital counseling in the late ’90s, around our very difficult time, but that’s all.’ She shrugs. ‘That’s not how I roll. I’m all for it for anybody who’s at all interested in it. It’s just not how I deal with stuff.’” http://nym.ag/2qXeBRC … The cover http://nym.ag/2qsmRFw

HMM — “U.S. Quietly Lifts Limit on Number of Refugees Allowed In,”by NYT’s Gardiner Harris: “Despite repeated efforts by President Trump to curtail refugee resettlements, the State Department this week quietly lifted the department’s restriction on the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States. The result could be a near doubling of refugees entering the country, from about 830 people a week in the first three weeks of this month to well over 1,500 people per week by next month, according to refugee advocates. Tens of thousands of refugees are waiting to come to the United States.” http://nyti.ms/2qtEhSv

THE JUICE …

— NORM EISEN, former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic and White House ethics czar for President Barack Obama, is writing “The Last Palace,” a narrative book of historical non-fiction of the people who have lived in the U.S. ambassador’s house in Prague over the last 100 years. Those people include the residence’s Jewish builder, an aristocratic German general who occupied it during World War Two, and Shirley Temple Black, a child star who later was a diplomat. Eisen’s book was sold at auction to Crown and has also been sold to publishers in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Holland, Israel, Brazil and of course the Czech Republic.

REMEMBERING ZBIG — “Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Dies at 89,” by NYT’s Daniel Lewis: “Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish strategic theorist who was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the tumultuous years of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, died on Friday at a hospital in Virginia. He was 89. His death, at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, was announced on Friday by his daughter, Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of the MSNBC program ‘Morning Joe.’

“Like his predecessor Henry A. Kissinger, Mr. Brzezinski was a foreign-born scholar (he in Poland, Mr. Kissinger in Germany) with considerable influence in global affairs, both before and long after his official tour of duty in the White House. In essays, interviews and television appearances over the decades, he cast a sharp eye on six successive administrations, including that of Donald J. Trump, whose election he did not support and whose foreign policy, he found, lacked coherence. Mr. Brzezinski was nominally a Democrat, with views that led him to speak out, for example, against the ‘greed,’ as he put it, of an American system that compounded inequality. He was one of the few foreign policy experts to warn against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.” http://nyti.ms/2r8oixc

–MIKA’S INSTAGRAM POST about her dad: “My father passed away peacefully tonight. He was known to his friends as Zbig, to his grandchildren as Chief and to his wife as the enduring love of her life. I just knew his as the most inspiring, loving and devoted father any girl could ever have. I love you Dad #HailToTheChief.” http://bit.ly/2rrPfN3 … Another Mika Instagram post about her dad and mom http://bit.ly/2qZgY6x

— BRZEZINSKI’s LAST TWEET – May 4, (@zbig): “Sophisticated US leadership is the sine qua non of a stable world order. However, we lack the former while the latter is getting worse.”

PHOTO DU JOUR: Leaders of the G7 nations watch the Frecce Tricolori Italian Air Force acrobatic squadron performing in Taormina, Italy, on May 26. | Luca Bruno/AP Photo

HEADS UP — AP/LONDON: “British Airways cancels flights amid global computer outage”: “British Airways canceled all flights from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports Saturday as a global IT failure causes severe disruption for travelers. The airline said it was suffering a ‘major IT systems failure’ around the world. It didn’t say what was causing the problem but said there is no evidence of a cyberattack.”

FOR WHITE HOUSE AIDES — “Trump aides facing perilous stage of Russia probe: Investigators are ramping up requests for documents, and any failure to preserve records exposes Trump aides to criminal charges down the line,” by Darren Samuelsohn: “Trump’s campaign, said a former senior aide, didn’t do much in the way of establishing a backup plan to preserve those digital records. ‘You’d be giving us too much credit,’ said [a] former staffer. ‘The idea of document retention did not come up.’” http://politi.co/2qpWSzn

IN FOGGY BOTTOM — “Exclusive: Tillerson declines to host Ramadan event at State Department,” by Reuters’ Yeganeh Torbati: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.

“Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department. Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.” http://reut.rs/2rIZ8ps

CLINTON WATCH — “Suit against Hillary Clinton over Benghazi deaths and emails is dismissed,” by Josh Gerstein: “A federal judge in Washington has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Hillary Clinton’s lax security surrounding her emails led to the deaths of two of the Americans killed in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson tossed out the wrongful death claims as well as allegations that Clinton essentially slandered the parents of the deceased by contracting accounts the parents gave of their children’s deaths.” http://politi.co/2r6qYsY

DEPT. OF SWAMP DRAINING — “White House Backs Down on Keeping Ethics Waivers Secret,” by NYT’s Eric Lipton: “The White House unexpectedly backed down Friday in a confrontation with the government’s top ethics officer, announcing it will publicly disclose waivers that have been quietly handed out since January to let certain former lobbyists work in the administration.” http://nyti.ms/2r6U6Au

MEDIAWATCH — “As Trump’s Problems Mount, Breitbart’s Numbers Are Cratering: A media business based on attack has been much less successful when forced to defend,” by Vanity Fair’s Tina Nguyen: “‘Breitbart News is the #45th most trafficked website in the United States, according to rankings from Amazon’s analytics company, Alexa.com,’ [Breitbart] wrote on January 9, 2017. … Just a few months later, the numbers have a different story to tell. As of May 26, 2017, according to Alexa.com … Breitbart is in 281st place. … Measuring web traffic is an inexact art, but other web-analytics companies reflect a similar, unusually steep decline in Breitbart’s traffic. ComScore estimated that Breitbart had nearly 23 million unique visitors during the month of November 2016, but only drew 10.7 million in April 2017, a 53 percent drop.” http://bit.ly/2rHJevH

— HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: “MSNBC Chief Phil Griffin Re-ups Amid Historic Ratings,” by Marisa Guthrie. http://bit.ly/2r8OqIh

–“Homework? First I Need to Get to the Bottom of This Comey Story,”by Stuart Emmrich on the cover of tomorrow’s N.Y. Times Sunday Styles (print headline: “Waking Up With Gabe”): “It’s 7:32 on a recent Wednesday morning, and Gabe Fleisher is racing to put the finishing touches on his daily newsletter, Wake Up to Politics. … [M]ore than 2,000 subscribers who expect their Wake Up briefing to appear in their email inboxes just after 8 a.m. each weekday. … Gabe Fleisher is not a Washington pundit or a producer for CNN, but a 15-year-old freshman at a St. Louis high school. The free newsletter, which he has been writing in some form since he was 8, is a surprisingly sophisticated, well-researched summary of the day’s political news. It counts among its subscribers Gene B. Sperling … Steve Kornacki … Major Garrett … Mark Halperin; and Jim VandeHei … as well as reporters for The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today.” http://nyti.ms/2rZlu3j

HOT NEW JOB — @adamgoldmanNYT: “Major journalism job opening at the @AP — Washington Bureau Chief” – The job listing http://bit.ly/2s0ZSUd

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CLICKER – “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker – 14 keepers http://politi.co/2rpUBbD

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

–“Aleppo After the Fall,” by Robert F. Worth in tomorrow’s N.Y. Times Magazine: “As the Syrian civil war turns in favor of the regime, a nation adjusts to a new reality — and a complicated new picture of the conflict emerges.” http://nyti.ms/2s4w88f

–“Raj Chetty on teachers, social mobility, and how to find answers to big questions” – Tyler Cowen on Medium: “‘I think current trends suggest that segregation will continue to grow in the US. Take the case of driverless cars, for example. One way that could go is, if you have access to driverless cars, it makes it all the more easy to go live further away in a secluded place, further reduce interaction, right?’” http://bit.ly/2qXjASl

–“The Exquisitely English (and Amazingly Lucrative) World of London Clerks,” by Simon Akam in Bloomberg Businessweek: “It’s a Dickensian profession that can still pay upwards of $650,000 per year.” https://bloom.bg/2qrLtP1

–“This is what it’s like to be struck by lightning,” by Charlotte Huff in Mosaic Science: “Of every ten people hit by lightning, nine will survive to tell the tale. But they could suffer a variety of short- and long-term effects. The list is lengthy and daunting: cardiac arrest, confusion, seizures, dizziness, distractibility, personality changes and chronic pain, among others. Lightning can also knock out the region of the brain that controls breathing. This doesn’t have a built-in reset, meaning a person’s oxygen supply can become dangerously depleted.” http://bit.ly/2qrMerb

–“Iran’s Support for Terrorist Groups,” by Daniel Byman in Lawfare – per The Browser’s description: “Iran has downgraded its post-1979 hopes of exporting Islamist revolution to the rest of the world. Instead, as a ‘relatively weak state with hostile neighbors’, it must be primarily concerned with its own stability and survival. But alliances with terrorist and militant groups remain an integral part of Iran’s foreign policy, because they have proved to be a cost-effective way of intimidating and destabilising near and distant enemies.” http://bit.ly/2rHnPSZ

–“Farming the World: China’s Epic Race to Avoid a Food Crisis” –Bloomberg: “Ballooning populations in Asia, Africa and South America will add another 2 billion people within a generation. If China is to have enough affordable food for its population in the second half of this century, it will need to make sure the world grows food for 9 billion people.” https://bloom.bg/2qXfkCr

–“The Most Important Scientist You’ve Never Heard Of,” by Lucas Reilly in Mental Floss: “For 60 years, American drivers unknowingly poisoned themselves by pumping leaded gasoline into their tanks. Here is the lifelong saga of Clair Patterson—a scientist who helped build the atomic bomb and discovered the true age of the Earth—and how he took on a billion-dollar industry to save humanity from itself.” http://bit.ly/2rpGPpE

–“Long Way Home: The Circumnavigations of Henk De Velde,” by Ryan Bradley in VQR: “I learned that any human record is meaningless. I realised I was part of my boat, that I was talking, although not loud, to the whales around me. I saw the birds looking at me and, the word enjoying is not strong enough. This was it, this was my sea life. Already I knew that the sea would never let me go again, that I was in its eternal grip.” http://bit.ly/2qo6cnw

–“Fire on the Mountain: A night of terror in Gatlinburg, Tennessee,” by Justin Heckert in the June/July issue of Garden & Gun: “On the night of November 28, residents of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, found themselves in the midst of a nightmare. Within hours, a small blaze had exploded into the worst fire in the Smoky Mountains in a hundred years, forcing thousands to flee and leaving fourteen dead. Months later, the tourist town is bouncing back. But for some who survived that terrifying night, life will never be the same.” http://bit.ly/2r6osVy (h/t Longreads.com)

–“Surfer John John Florence’s Very Wavy World,” by Zach Baron in GQ: “The best surfer on the planet is a 24-year-old from Hawaii named John John Florence. We visited the big-wave champ at his compound on Oahu’s North Shore before he flew to Australia to defend his world title. So was the surf king nervous? Nah, competition’s not really his thing.” http://bit.ly/2qnLsvZ (h/t Longform.org)

–“How men continue to interrupt even the most powerful women,” by Tonja Jacobi and Dylan Schweers in Aeon Magazine: “There are few more powerful positions than being a Supreme Court justice, yet the female justices are just like other women: talked over by their male colleagues. In the past 12 years, when women made up on average 24 per cent of the bench, 32 per cent of interruptions were of the female justices, only 4 per cent of interruptions were by the female justices. Male advocates account for approximately 10 per cent of all interruptions; female advocates for 0 per cent.” http://bit.ly/2rYTDQC

–“Colombia’s Guerrillas Come out of the Jungle,” by The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson: “Carlos Antonio Lozada, a FARC commander, tries to guide his former fighters back into society.” http://bit.ly/2rpJy25

SPOTTED: Eric Trump yesterday at a 7 a.m. Flywheel class at City Center using the name “ET USA” coming in last place on the Torqboard, per our tipster … Susan Rice and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) yesterday talking at Millie’s in Spring Valley … Speaker Paul Ryan yesterday on Flight AA2192 from ORD to DFW in coach in an aisle seat with kids next to him. “Took pictures outside of the bathroom for a few minutes, with police escort.” Pic http://bit.ly/2r6C97b … HHS Secretary Tom Price in the first row on a flight from DCA to ATL. Someone stopped him in the aisle and told him, in wonderfully Georgian terms, “I hope you find some goodness in your heart, Mr. Secretary.”

ENGAGED — Tommy Schultz, national communications director at the American Federation for Children, recently got engaged to Ashley Harvey, an account executive at Go Big Media. He proposed outside the White House while on a tour. A friend of his who used to work for then-Gov. Terry Branstad (Tommy worked on his 2014 campaign) is now working at the White House and set up the West Wing tour. The couple met at a conference near Nashville in 2015; he was there on behalf of a congressional race he was campaign manager for (Grant Starrett), and she was there on behalf of a PR firm. Pics http://bit.ly/2s7diNy … http://bit.ly/2s77TWX … Flickr album http://bit.ly/2s0RkMV

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Monica Almeida … Margo Tercek, a staffer for Sen. Michael Bennet, turned 26 (h/t dad Mark) … Ryan Graham … Andrew Ciafardini … Joe Cupka

BIRTHDAYS: David Plouffe, president of CZI Policy and Advocacy, is 5-0 … Henry Kissinger is 94 … Campbell Robertson, New Orleans-based correspondent for NYT, is 41 (gumbo tip: JMart) … Noam Scheiber, NYT labor and workplace reporter, is 41 … MPAA Chairman Christopher Dodd is 73 … former FBI Director William Sessions is 87 … Matt McKenna … Marc Stanley is 6-0 (h/t Jon Haber) … Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) is 71 … Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) is 7-0 … Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) is 55 … Politico’s Devin Drewyer … Independent Journal Review chief content officer Benny Johnson is 31 (h/t Katelyn) … Rob Flynn is 59 … WaPo alum Brigid Schulte, founding director of The Good Life Initiative at New America … Thalia Assuras, former anchor at CBS and ABC, celebrating a “huge” milestone birthday – “She looks half her age. Must be the Greek heritage and Mediterranean diet” (hubby tip: Mike Johnson) … Politico Europe’s Marylise Mahé … Elise Dietsch … Sean Rapelyea … Herman Wouk is 102 … Sumner Redstone is 94 (h/ts Jewish Insider) …

… NBC News’ Cynthia McFadden … Katya “Kat” Dimenstein, LD for Rep. David Schweikert … “West Wing” alum Richard Schiff is 62 (h/ts Kurt Bardella) … Jessica Borchert … Adam Clayton Powell IV … Kelsey Baron … Jillian Busch … Philadelphia Inquirer’s Andrew Seidman … Sue Tagliabue … Lauren Paige … Jenny Drucker … Christy Harvey … Benjamin Cole … Erin Wallwork … Russ Rosler … Drew Cole, partner at Roberti Global: Irizarry Klein Roberti … Bob Rayner is 57 … Sherry Amatenstein … Stefanie Prelesnik … Devan Barber … Andrew Keeney … Whitney Gulick Reboulet … Melissa Ludtke … Karen Kirksey … Cary O’Reilly, editor at large at Bloomberg … AP photojournalist Andrew Harnik … NPR Delhi bureau chief Julie McCarthy … Andrew Powaleny … former NY Gov. David Paterson is 63 … Kris Martinsek … Juanita Williams … Jan Silvers … Jill Wilkins … Ned Sebelius (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … actor Jack McBrayer is 44 … rapper Andre 3000 (Outkast) is 42 … TV chef Jamie Oliver is 41 (h/ts AP)

THE SHOWS, by @MattMackowiak, filing from Fort Worth, Texas:

— NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly … Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) … New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Panel: Joy Reid, Kimberley Strassel, Charlie Sykes and Amy Walter

— ABC’s “This Week”: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly … Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Panel: Gwenda Blair, Tom llamas and Timothy O’Brien

— CBS’s “Face the Nation”: Defense Secretary James Mattis … Ken Burns … Michael Morrell … Benjamin Wittes. Panel: Jeffrey Goldberg, Susan Page and Margaret Brennan

— “Fox News Sunday”: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly … Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) … Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Panel: Michael Needham, Gerald Seib, Gillian Turner and Charles Lane … “Power Player of the Week” segment with Blue Angels Commanding Officer Cmdr. Ryan Bernacchi

–CNN’s “State of the Union” with substitute anchor Dana Bash: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Panel: Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Jennifer Granholm, Kevin Madden and former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner

— Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”: Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) … Steve Hilton … Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah). Panel: Ed Rollins and Brad Blakeman

— Fox News’ “MediaBuzz”: Erin McPike … Mollie Hemingway … Joe Trippi … James Rosen … Liz Claman

— CNN’s “Inside Politics” with John King: Panel: Abby Phillip, Karoun Demirjian, Michael Warren and Jeff Zeleny

— CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS”: Panel: Ian Bremmer, Richard Haass, Matthew Kroenig and Anne-Marie Slaughter … Jeffrey Gettleman, author of the new book “Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War and Survival” … author Brian Greene

–CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with substitute anchor Frank Sesno: Panel: Michael Oreskes, Tara Palmeri, Erik Wemple, Indira Lakshmanan, Jane Hall and Kim Ghattas

— C-SPAN: “The Communicators”: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), questioned by Lydia Beyoud … “Newsmakers”: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), questioned by Susan Ferrechio and Lisa Mascaro … “Q&A”: Malcolm Nance

— Washington Times’ “Mack on Politics” weekly politics podcast with Matt Mackowiak (download on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher or listen at http://bit.ly/2r37J6h): Karen Elliott House

****** A message from the Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD): One in two Americans rely on their employers to provide health care benefits. So, employers partner with PBMs to provide access to effective medications at the most affordable price. PBMs drive savings in part by using clinical expertise to identify generic alternatives that achieve the same health outcomes for a lower price. With generics accounting for 89 percent of prescriptions filled in 2015, but only 27 percent of drug costs, that represents a savings of $227 billion across the U.S. health care system in just one year. Learn more at www.affordableprescriptiondrugs.org. ******

SUBSCRIBE to the Playbook family: POLITICO Playbook http://politi.co/1M75UbX … New York Playbook http://politi.co/1ON8bqW… Florida Playbook http://politi.co/1OypFe9 … New Jersey Playbook http://politi.co/1HLKltF … Massachusetts Playbook http://politi.co/1Nhtq5v … Illinois Playbook http://politi.co/1N7u5sb …California Playbook http://politi.co/2bLvcPl … Brussels Playbook http://politi.co/1FZeLcw … All our political and policy tipsheets http://politi.co/1M75UbX

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viralhottopics · 8 years ago

Text

Piers Morgan: Im just putting opinions out there. Its my job

This week Morgan has taken on the Womens March, argued with Ewan McGregor, and boasted about being Donald Trumps best British friend. Why does he do it? Does he even believe what he says?

Piers Morgan last cried when his grandmother died, a little more than three years ago. Before that, he cant remember. Im not a crier, really. He sees himself more as a pantomime villain, and I thoroughly enjoy playing up to it. I cant even imagine the pressure of being some kind of national treasure. So for me, the panto villain part, I actually enjoy that whole thing.

Even by his own notorious standards, Morgan has had a fractious week. His Daily Mail column on Monday, which criticised last weekends womens marches, provoked Ewan McGregor to cancel an appearance on Good Morning Britain in protest. Morgan retaliated with another column calling the actor a paedophile-loving hypocrite. Feminists were furious with him all over again when he defended the right of employers to compel female staff to wear high heels.

Then, as Theresa May prepared to meet Donald Trump, he taunted Downing Street by firing off a public memo in the Mail, advising the PM or, to put it another way, showing off about how to approach his friend, the president. If its all going horribly wrong, dont hesitate to mention my name or even give me a call directly from the Oval Office and I will smooth things over. Its the very least I can do for my country. A memorable highlight came with his mute appearance at the National Television awards. He stood beside his Good Morning Britain co-presenter Susanna Reid, who had gagged him with his own tie.

It was Susannas idea, he says. We were in the car on the way, and she said, I think I know exactly how to get a joyous reaction from the nation. And it was indeed one of the great moments in British television, and the nation rejoiced.

The only detail of the weeks dramas that appears to have troubled Morgan was the discovery that working with him makes Reid cry.

I was surprised, he says, suddenly quieter. Because shes never cried at work, never seen her like that at all. So it was an interesting thing for me to discover this week that my co-host quite often goes home from work and cries. Its probably not always unconnected to me. How does he feel about that? A bit uneasy, actually. Quieter still. Yeah. A bit uneasy.

Ive known Morgan a little ever since he was the loud, precociously young editor of the Daily Mirror in the 1990s, and have always enjoyed his company tremendously. But our paths havent crossed since Trumps bid for the presidency propelled the journalist into his surprise new role as the leader of the free worlds best friend in Britain. The pair have been on close terms since 2008, when Morgan won the first series of Celebrity Apprentice, and Morgan now performs the role of Trumps tirelessly loyal defender while constantly claiming to be not a political sympathiser but just a personal friend.

When I watched Morgan reduce a young female guest to tears on Good Morning Britain two weeks ago, berating her as the worst kind of mother, I wondered whether I would still enjoy his company. The tone felt uncomfortably ugly, more in keeping with an altright online troll than the mischief-maker who used to conduct playful feuds with clowns like Jeremy Clarkson. This weeks events could be read by critics as further evidence to support the unhappy impression that cheerleading for Trump has soured Morgan, and turned him into a rightwing, misogynistic bully.

If one is looking for further evidence to confirm that impression, Morgan doesnt disappoint. The 51-year-old bounces into his local pub, just off Kensington High Street, and opens with his reaction to Trumps comments about waterboarding and torture he is exercised by the BBCs misreporting of what Trump said. There is, as you know, a massive debate in America about waterboarding. I dont personally subscribe to torture. But its an arguable point as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture which is startlingly tepid for a man who once campaigned against the abuse of Iraqi detainees by coalition forces.

Morgan has been friends with Trump since he won Celebrity Apprentice in 2008. Photograph: Photowire/BEI/Shutterstock

He refers to a swarm of migration through Europe, and defends Trumps comment about wanting women to be punished for having illegal abortions. It would be a pretty logical thing for somebody who believes abortions a crime.

Critics who suspect Morgan will say anything to generate attention might equally seize upon his admission that this weeks controversies are completely connected to the fact that he has a new series of Piers Morgans Life Stories on ITV next week. He is strategising to maximise publicity all the time, he says freely. Of course! Everyone on TV is. Im just better at it than most of them.

Whether or not Morgan would welcome this, the truth is that I nevertheless find him much more nuanced and less cocksure than his public persona or Twitter feed might suggest. The reliably consistent theme in all of his feuds is intolerance of hypocrisy.

So his objection to the womens marches, he explains, is simply this. How does it help the cause for any woman on that march fighting for genuine issues, for equality and everything else, for one of the lead speakers Madonna to talk openly about having had dreams of blowing up the White House? Im not sure why Morgan would take Madonna seriously, when she herself has said she was speaking metaphorically, and he was willing to take Trump at his word last year (he denied he had meant to incite Hillary Clintons assassination during a rally speech). Because if you make a threat like that at an airport, youd be arrested and put in jail. Why should it be a different rule for Madonna? I point out that she wasnt at an airport, but another speakers incest joke about Trumps daughter struck Morgan as similarly offensive.

Ivanka Trump is a mother of three, very hardworking. I know her very well and I felt really incensed on her behalf when the sisterhood decided to be incredibly offensive about her whilst at a rally designed to counter the anti-women rhetoric of the President Donald Trump. Theres a hypocrisy there which I just found ridiculous. If your main issue with Trump is the way that he talks to people, and the language and the belligerence and the bombast and the wording, then I dont think you should be doing the same thing to him.

What drives Morgan quite mad is hypocritical virtue signalling masquerading as political engagement. Ewan McGregor was basically trying to position me as a great woman-hater. So, I decided to just take a look at his own record in this area, and load of interviews he gave about his great friend Roman Polanski, what a fine man he was, how sorry he was that he had to go to prison, blah, blah, blah and Im like, Really? I wonder how the sisterhood who currently have you down as the No 1 hero for womens rights in the world would feel knowing that Roman Polanski admitted his crime, then left the country to avoid justice when he was facing a long prison sentence for raping, drugging and sodomising a 13-year-old girl?

Why does McGregors affection for Polanksi discredit his feminist credentials, but not Morgans for Trump? Trump hasnt been convicted of raping anyone. Look, my position has been consistently, from day one,that I wouldnt vote for him. But I do know him very well, and I would just like to slightly offer a more tempered view of the man that is being described everywhere as the new Hitler and the monster. I just think now hes there, its like Brexit; I voted remain, but Ive always been a glass-half-full person, and Im prepared to have an open dialogue with people like Nigel Farage about how we now maximise the opportunity of Brexit. The same with Trump. I find the hysteria just pointless and absurd and self-defeating and ridiculous. Ive got friends of mine literally losing their minds. And Im like, calm down, please calm down. I know this guy.

Coming from Morgan, who personally wrote the paedophile-loving headline for his McGregor column, this will strike some as a bit rich, but he goes on: Its very important in this extremity of debate, the kind of thing that led to Jo Cox getting killed, to be calm. Isnt Morgan himself an arch professional provocateur? But Im just putting opinions out there. Im a columnist, its my job. Isnt anyone else allowed to hold contentious views? Of course! And coming from a highly opinionated family, Im drawn to people who have opinions and are prepared to argue them.

I would have thought Madonna, who Morgan never tires of attacking, would fall into that category. No, because she has an opinion quota based on this pure ability to shock and offend, which I find pointless, quite cliched and increasingly very nauseating.

Morgan never tires of attacking celebrities such as Hugh Grant or Steve Coogan either, for whining about the press. But all the complaints made by those two actors wouldnt amount to a fraction of Trumps grievances with the mainstream media, of which Morgan with two newspaper columns and three TV shows is unquestionably a member.

I dont particularly consider myself to be MSM. Id probably be more a kind of renegade; Im RMSM, renegade mainstream media. I dont think the mainstream media has ever fully made me a paid-up member of their club.. As he breaks off this line of thought to tweet about his latest Daily Mail column, I suggest hes on a sticky wicket here. OK, alright. But I am afraid that the journalists have to stop whining.

It was an interesting thing for me to discover that my co-host quite often goes home from work and cries Morgan with Susanna Reid at the National Television awards. Photograph: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

As a fanatical champion of a robust free press, surely he thinks Trump should stop whining? Its a good point, he concedes. My honest answer is I think theyve all got to calm down . I think Trump has to have a more respectful relationship with the media and they have to have it with him.

For all Morgans ferocious rhetoric, he is surprisingly willing to concede points. Id found his defence of employers forcing women to wear heels suspiciously unpersuasive, and the more we talk, the more ground he gives. Im only saying it to keep the debate going, he admits at one point and when I remind him he praised Julia Roberts for going barefoot on the red carpet at Cannes last year, in protest at the festivals insistence that women attending screenings wear heels, for a fleeting second he looks sheepish. I thought that was quite cool, yes. In an interview with the Times last year, he in fact offered up Robertss protest as an example of what real feminism looked like, didnt he? OK, I think thats a fair point.

Real feminism, Morgan maintains, is not about being a man-hating victim but a strong woman. My mother is an incredibly strong, independent woman. My sister is. My grandmother was. I was brought up around incredibly strong, independent women. Im married to a strong, independent woman. I absolutely define myself as a feminist and take issue with people who think Im not, because by the yardstick of what I give to feminism, which is genuine pursuit of equality in all things for women, I think I pass that test, I do. I do, I love women. Ive always been surrounded bywomen who would never dream of being pushed around by men.

This, I suggest, might be the problem. Go on, he says, genuinely interested. Because Im actually on a learning curve here. When ones only ever known strong women, it can be easy to feel exasperated with those who have suffered experiences that make Morgans idea of strength a pretty tall order. It becomes dangerously easy to get angry with women who stay with their abusers, say, and mistake their predicament for weakness.

I get that. I get it. Totally. He thinks for a moment. I take your point. When I hear that Susanna went home and cried after the show, I would like to have known why, but she would see it as weak to tell me and I dont want her to feel that. He thinks again. You remember, we were put together on Good Morning Britain like an arranged marriage, and I think weve just got to know each other a lot better, and she sees a the upside of having these debates about sexism on air in real time, with me perhaps going on a little bit of a journey of discovery.

Morgans crusade against hypocrisy is, of course, somewhat undermined by the fact that he admits to being a total hypocrite himself Of course! All journalists are! For anyone looking for a reliable rule to explain his wild enthusiasms and fierce feuds, the secret, he says, is really quite simple. Im a human being. If people are nice to me, Im nice to them. An afterthought crosses his mind, and he laughs. Donald Trumps actually pretty similar.