Maxine Waters Dead Broke As Anti-Trump Campaign Sends Her Into 6-Figure Debt
Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) attempt to whitewash her reputation by denigrating President Trump has failed miserably. This year the California blowhard has only managed to raise a meager $22,000 in individual campaign donations. The number becomes even more dismal when you learn that Waters owes more than $100,000 to her daughter.
The left is so desperate for a candidate to rally around that they’ve decided to forget about Waters’ corrupt past. For the past decade or more, her name has been associated with ethics violations. Story after story has been published regarding Waters’ financial schemes and overt nepotism.
Waters reinvented herself by becoming the voice of the Trump “resistance.” Millennials care more about her ability to fling witty insults than her questionable past. She’s been in politics for the past 40 years yet her popularity has never been greater. After the president was elected she gained over 250,000 Twitter followers.
“When ethics groups of all political leanings agree that a particular member of Congress does not have the minimal ethics needed for the position, it is strange that that member parades as an advocate of ethics,” Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, told the Daily Beast. “That describes the current odd posturing of Maxine Waters.”
One of Waters’ most flagrant ethics violations involved hiring her daughter to work with her campaign. Since 2006 Karen Waters has been paid $750,000 for running her mother’s political mailer campaign. If that wasn’t bad enough, critics argue that the mailer campaign was tinged with corruption even before Karen got involved.
“Longtime Democratic lawmaker Maxine Waters has perfected an unusual tactic for fundraising over the years – getting candidates, including some of California’s most prominent political figures, running for state and local offices, to pay as much as $45,000 for her endorsement on election mailers. In this election cycle alone, Waters has raised 59 percent of her campaign’s treasury through these ‘slate mailers,’” the Sunlight Foundation wrote in 2010.
The law prohibits individuals from donating too much money to a political campaign, but there’s no such rule in place for mailers. Waters legally raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from politicians eager to win her endorsement.
The slate mailer program is controlled by Karen. The campaign currently owes her $108,000 for her work.
Waters has worked strenuously to clear herself from the charges and imputations.
“This story that you’re trying to put together, to somehow make it look as if I am as bad as a Trump, and I do bad things, and that somehow I don’t deserve to criticize him, is not credible,” Waters told the Daily Beast.
“I’d like you to think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and I’d like you think about whether or not you’re trying to maybe protect the president somewhat, cleanse him a little bit, make him look a bit better, to make it look as if other people don’t have the right to point these things out about him and other people who you make it look as if they have the same kinds of problems. I want you to think about that and think about whether or not this is a story you really want to do.”
The Daily Beast is a liberal-leaning journal, yet Waters’ isn’t pleased their writers. Her claim that she’s being attacked by people trying to “cleanse” the president is absurd. Waters has been involved in multiple scandals throughout her career. Her deceitful practices have nothing to do with Trump.
Most liberals, however, are willing to ignore her past mistakes as she long she complains about Trump. Who cares about the massive, fraudulent schemes that she’s involved in? Trump’s the problem. At least, delusional and disgruntled leftists believe.
“We needed someone right now to shine the light of truth in a way that wakes us all up,” said Brittany Packnett, co-founder of Campaign Zero, told BuzzFeed. “Congresswoman Waters is that light. She’s shaking it up and telling the truth, and we all owe her for it. She’s the Auntie Boss: As real as your Auntie and as powerful as only a black woman could be.”
“Sex Change” Macaroni & Cheese: Investigators Disturbed As 96% Of Cheese Tests Positive
You won’t find sex altering chemicals on the ingredient list but they’re in there. An alarming study released this week analyzed 30 popular cheese products and found the bright orange powder in boxed macaroni and cheese had the highest levels. The Coalition for Safer Food Processing & Packaging sent samples off to an independent lab in Belgium for testing.
After analyzing different products including natural cheese in block and string varieties, processed cheese slices and powdered cheese, the study found evidence of endocrine disrupting chemicals called phthalates in 29 out of 30 samples. The more processed the cheese sampled, the higher the concentration found. Natural cheese had the smallest amounts and cheese powder had the most.
Phthalates aren’t added directly to food, which is why you won’t find them listed on the package. Instead, they come from the machines and mechanical equipment the food travels through in processing. “They are used in the plastic tubing, the plastic gloves, the gaskets all along the food supply chain.” Even the cheese varieties labeled “Organic” were found to be affected because the organic labeling laws do not address chemicals added in processing.
Endocrine disruptors attack the hormonal system in humans after being easily soaked up by fat cells in an unbroken stream from plastics to food to people. High levels of these disruptors are related to fertility issues in both male and female adults. Children exposed during pregnancy have been diagnosed with neurodevelopment and behavior issues. The effects in fish are even more dramatic.
Endocrine disruptors in the water supply have feminized one out of every five male fish studied. The same chemicals known to cause early puberty and infertility in humans have wiped out entire colonies of fish. Instead of dying all at once, “the numbers get lower and lower until the whole colony is dead.” Male fish are less aggressive and have lower sperm count. They even “tend to make female proteins and produce eggs.”
A large number of phthalates were banned for use in children’s toys in 2008, but not from any of the other places these chemicals are commonly found such as adhesives, rubber compounds, soap, ink and fragrances as well as many types of plastics. The recent study looked at 30 different cheese products. The natural cheese had the lowest levels and powder cheese the highest, with almost four times the amount found in unprocessed samples.
Kraft Heinz is the biggest seller of the popular side dish and accounts for three fourths of all box macaroni and cheese sales. Understandably, they are pushing back hard in response to this study. In a statement, the manufacturer proclaims, “We do not add phthalates to our products. The trace amounts that were reported in this limited study are more than 1,000 times lower than levels that scientific authorities have identified as acceptable. Our products are safe for consumers to enjoy.”
While their products are within legal tolerance, whether they are “safe for consumers” or not is a question that will take a very long time to answer. In the meantime, they do have a point which they are not presenting directly because it does not help the image any. What they want you to realize without telling you is that their product is NO MORE DANGEROUS than any other product, a very subtle distinction.
An assistant professor from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Jessie Buckley, explains we don’t even know how much and how many endocrine disrupting chemicals like phthalates we encounter in our daily lives. “We don’t have a lot of information on how much phthalates are in different foods. There’s no requirement to release that info.” She goes on to say these chemicals leave the body in as little as a few hours, but the real concern is the overall load of toxins absorbed from constant exposure. Pregnant women are especially concerned due to the harm that could come to the developing fetus. “We don’t know what the safe limits are — but it’s prudent to limit exposure if we can,” she added.
A related article in Popular Science spotlights the danger is all around us. “The real issue is that these chemicals are ubiquitous, so mac-n-cheese is likely not your only source of exposure. If you wear perfume, wash your clothes with detergents containing fragrance, breathe while inside a room with vinyl floors, eat a container of jelly, or chow down on a carton of vegan ice cream, you’re probably getting some phthalates, too. How can we not, given that phthalates have been found in spices, seafood, fruit juice, and beer? The mac-n-cheese report did not test for the presence of phthalates in the macaroni, but it’s likely that they too would have tested positive—phthalates have been found in bread and cereal products as well. Even if you buy products in glass jars, you’re likely getting exposed when you consume them: one study found that glass jars of olives and peanut butter contain phthalates—they migrate from the little plastic gaskets that keep those jars sealed.”
A representative of the Environmental Health Strategy Center said, “We’re not alleging that any single product is unsafe … but the risk is already too high, so further research is needed to identify where the phthalates are coming from.” A petition started by the group sponsoring the cheese study is asking Kraft Heinz to “identify the source of chemicals and remove them from the food packaging process” but that is only a drop in the bucket. American consumers should be demanding the alphabet agencies already charged with protecting public health and safety to do their jobs and keep these chemicals out of every step in our food chain.
Trump team seeks to control, block Mueller’s Russia investigation
Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.
Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.
Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.
“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,’ ” a close adviser said.
With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal advisers.
A conflict of interest is one of the possible grounds that can be cited by an attorney general to remove a special counsel from office under Justice Department regulations that set rules for the job.
The president is also irritated by the notion that Mueller’s probe could reach into his and his family’s finances, advisers said.
Trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been informed about the legal questions that he and his family could face. His primary frustration centers on why allegations that his campaign coordinated with Russia should spread into scrutinizing many years of Trump dealmaking. He has told aides he was especially disturbed after learning Mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns.
Trump has repeatedly refused to make his tax returns public after first claiming he could not do so because he was under audit or after promising to release them after an IRS audit was completed. All presidents since Jimmy Carter have released their tax returns.
Further adding to the challenges facing Trump’s outside lawyers, the team’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, resigned on Thursday, according to two people familiar with his departure. Corallo did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
“If you’re looking at Russian collusion, the president’s tax returns would be outside that investigation,” said a close adviser to the president.
Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s private lawyers, said in an interview Thursday that the president and his legal team are intent on making sure Mueller stays within the boundaries of his assignment as special counsel. He said they will complain directly to Mueller if necessary.
“The fact is that the president is concerned about conflicts that exist within the special counsel’s office and any changes in the scope of the investigation,” Sekulow said. “The scope is going to have to stay within his mandate. If there’s drifting, we’re going to object.”
Sekulow cited Bloomberg News reports that Mueller is scrutinizing some of Trump’s business dealings, including with a Russian oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach mansion from Trump for $95 million in 2008.
“They’re talking about real estate transactions in Palm Beach several years ago,” Sekulow said. “In our view, this is far outside the scope of a legitimate investigation.”
The president has long called the FBI investigation into his campaign’s possible coordination with the Russians a “witch hunt.” But now, Trump is coming face-to-face with a powerful investigative team that is able to study evidence of any crime it encounters in the probe — including tax fraud, lying to federal agents and interference in the investigation.
“This is Ken Starr times 1,000,” said one lawyer involved in the case, referring to the independent counsel who oversaw an investigation that eventually led to House impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. “Of course, it’s going to go into his finances.”
Following Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey — in part because of his displeasure with the FBI’s Russia investigation — Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in a written order. That order gave Mueller broad authority to investigate links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” and any crimes committed in response to the investigation, such as perjury or obstruction of justice.
Mueller’s probe has already expanded to include an examination of whether Trump obstructed justice in his dealings with Comey, as well as the business activities of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
Trump’s team could potentially challenge whether a broad probe of Trump’s finances prior to his candidacy could be considered a matter that arose “directly” from an inquiry into possible collusion with a foreign government.
The president’s legal representatives have also identified what they allege are several conflicts of interest facing Mueller, such as donations to Democrats by some of his prosecutors.
Another potential conflict claim is an allegation that Mueller and Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia had a dispute over membership fees when Mueller resigned as a member in 2011, two White House advisers said. A spokesman for Mueller said there was no dispute when Mueller, who was FBI director at the time, left the club.
Trump also took public aim on Wednesday at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein, whose actions led to Mueller’s appointment. In an interview with the New York Times Wednesday, the president said he never would have nominated Sessions if he knew he was going to recuse himself from the case.
Some Republicans in frequent touch with the White House said they viewed the president’s decision to publicly air his disappointment with Sessions as a warning sign that the attorney general’s days were numbered. Several senior aides were described as “stunned” when Sessions announced Thursday morning he would stay on at the Justice Department.
Another Republican in touch with the administration described the public steps as part of a broader effort aimed at “laying the groundwork to fire” Mueller.
“Who attacks their entire Justice Department?” this person said. “It’s insane.”
Law enforcement officials described Sessions as increasingly distant from the White House and the FBI because of the strains of the Russia investigation.
Traditionally, Justice Department leaders have sought to maintain a certain degree of autonomy from the White House as a means of ensuring prosecutorial independence.
But Sessions’s situation is more unusual, law enforcement officials said, because he has angered the president for apparently being too independent while also angering many at the FBI for his role in the president’s firing of Comey.
As a result, there is far less communication among those three key parts of the government than in years past, several officials said.
Currently, the discussions of pardoning authority by Trump’s legal team are purely theoretical, according to two people familiar with the ongoing conversations. But if Trump pardoned himself in the face of the ongoing Mueller investigation, it would set off a legal and political firestorm, first around the question of whether a president can use the constitutional pardon power in that way.
“This is a fiercely debated but unresolved legal question,” said Brian C. Kalt, a constitutional law expert at Michigan State University who has written extensively on the question.
The power to pardon is granted to the president in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, which gives the commander in chief the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” That means pardon authority extends to federal criminal prosecution but not to state level or impeachment inquiries.
No president has sought to pardon himself, so no courts have reviewed it. Although Kalt says the weight of the law argues against a president pardoning himself, he says the question is open and predicts such an action would move through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court.
“There is no predicting what would happen,” said Kalt, author of the book, “Constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies.” It includes chapters on the ongoing debate over whether presidents can be prosecuted while in office and on whether a president can issue a pardon to himself.
Other White House advisers have tried to temper Trump, urging him to simply cooperate with the probe and stay silent on his feelings about the investigation.
On Monday, lawyer Ty Cobb, newly brought into the White House to handle responses to the Russian probe, convened a meeting with the president and his team of lawyers, according to two people briefed on the meeting. Cobb, who is not yet on the White House payroll, was described as attempting to instill some discipline in how the White House handles queries about the case. But Trump surprised many of his aides by speaking at length about the probe to the New York Times two days later. Cobb, who officially joins the White House team at the end of the month, declined to comment for this article.
Some note that the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit a president from pardoning himself. On the other side, experts say that by definition a pardon is something you can only give to someone else. There is also a common-law canon that prohibits individuals from serving as a judge in their own case. “For example, we would not allow a judge to preside over his or her own trial,” Kalt said.
A president can pardon an individual at any point, including before the person is charged with a crime, and the scope of a presidential pardon can be very broad. President Gerald Ford pardoned former president Richard M. Nixon preemptively for offenses he “committed or may have committed” while in office.
2 Men Indicted, Charged As Third Man Walks Free With Obama’s Help
The list of Obama offenses just gets longer and longer. Yesterday, the Department of Justice issued indictments on suspects charged with stealing and selling government weapons software to Iran. The men, Mohammed Saeed Ajily and Mohammed Reza Rezakhah are named in relation to a hacking operation against Arrow Tech, a Vermont-based firm that designs military munitions and analyses.
Although enemies hacking into government contractor’s computer systems and databases isn’t new, this story has a real twist.
The truly outrageous part is Obama’s calculated release of the third man involved in the treason. Nima Golestaneh was arrested in Turkey in 2013 and later extradited to the U.S. for hacking the Arrow Tech system. In fact, he plead guilty to the cybercrime and wire fraud charges in 2015, and was sentenced to prison.
However, apparently, Iran wanted their hacker back, because Obama promised to “exchange” seven Iranian prisoners for four Americans being held in the Muslim country. The Americans included a journalist and a pastor who rejoiced once back in America.
Of the seven Iranians Obama turned loose, six of the them had dual citizenship, but Golestaneh did not. At that time, Obama wielded strong control over the public media, and although questions were raised, the uneven–almost submissive–release was soon forgotten.
The crimes committed by the men the former president pardoned involved shipping equipment and information to Iran. Nader Modanlo worked for NASA, the Department of Defense, and a number of private companies that contracted with the government. He was found guilty of sending secrets to Iran that helped them launch their first satellite into space.
Bahram Mechanic illegally sent millions of dollars’ worth of private U.S. energy technology to Iran. The technology included a wide range of military systems, including surface-air and cruise missiles. During the watchful eyes of Obama, from July 2010 and 2015, Mechanic obtained 28 million different components worth $24 million and sent them to his mother country.
Mechanic’s partner Khosrow Afghahi, who co-owned Faratel Corporation in Iran and the Houston-based Smart Power System, was also one of the convicted criminals. The vice president of Smart Power assisted in the treason and regularly received lists of microelectronics in the U.S.
The seven men were supposed to fly back to Tehran, but actually, they vanished after their release. Two of the men involved in the embargo violation went home to their families in Texas and resumed their plush life styles. The remaining five disappeared across the country.
Nima Golstaneh spent his time hacking. Instead of gaining a business and public influence like the others, he simply continued to steal from Arrow Tech. Apparently, he wasn’t the only Iranian looking for free secrets from the defense contractor.
The three men stole the “Projectile Rocket Ordnance Design and Analysis System,” or PRODAS, which helps users analyze and create munitions such as bullets and GPS-guided artillery shells. The software is classified as a “defense article” and costs nearly $800,000.
The nefarious actions of the former president seem deliberately calculated to support terrorist nations and basically release all government defense secrets to America’s enemies.
The two men were discovered when they began advertising their hacking abilities against “Western” cyber security and sanctions created for U.S. protections. However, the entire scheme dates back to 2007, just about the time Obama took office, so the whole mess is his fault.
Obama should have never released Golstaneh or the others. His entire eight-year agenda was designed to promote a Muslim takeover of America. It’s also obvious from the amount of information and weapons sold to Iran that Arrow Tech, NASA, the Department of Defense, and every other existing government agency needs higher vetting rules.
The lost secrets and other treason that went on during Obama’s presidency may never be fully uncovered. Fortunately, there’s absolutely no way that President Trump would ever release such criminals. American finally has an ally, not a conspirator, in the White House.
Obama Official Agrees To Testify Before The House
The Russia investigation continues. Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Powers, has announced that she will testify before the House intelligence committee. Lawmakers believe that the Obama official may have information pertaining to the so-called “unmasking scandal,” in which the administration leaked the identities of Trump campaign workers.
Ostensibly to collect information on Russian election hacking efforts, intelligence agencies under Obama investigated Trump associates with ties to Moscow. Names that were amassed during the investigation were unlawfully revealed.
“Ambassador Powers strongly supports any bipartisan effort to investigate and address Russia’s interference in our electoral process and she wanted to engage both the House and Senate Committees charged with investigating it,” David Pressman, an attorney representing Power, said in a statement.
“Ambassador Power is very much looking forward to providing any assistance and encouragement she can to bipartisan efforts aimed at addressing this serious threat to our nation’s security.”
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared before the House and Senate on Monday, while several other key Obama officials plan to testify later week. Power has not yet revealed when she will appear on Capitol Hill.
According to Fox News:
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“The number of people thought to be involved in the alleged “unmasking” of American citizens under the Obama administration could be expanding…the records suggest the unmasking ‘goes beyond’ key officials like former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power…more than a half-dozen former senior Obama administration officials are now of interest to House committee investigators.”
The House committee has been preparing to hear from Susan Rice for weeks. She was originally going to appear this week, but the session has been postponed indefinitely. Rice’s testimony is expected to be even more explosive than Power’s.
The talking heads crowing about collusion on TV are ignoring the real meat of the Russia investigation. The Obama administration not only ignored signs of Russian interference in the election, but used the nation’s intelligence agencies to smear Trump’s reputation. Power and Rice will be questioned over their involvement in the unmasking scandal. Who knows what they might reveal?
“I leaked nothing to nobody, and never have,” Rice told MSNBC in March.
The House investigation has multiple focal points. Yes, they are looking into the Democrats’ allegations of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign, but they’re also inquiring into the evidence of Russia’s supposed involvement with our last election and “the use of intelligence authorities to investigate the Trump campaign, an inquiry that focuses on whether national-security powers (such as those codified in FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) were used pre textually, for the real purpose of conducting political spying.”
The National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy writes: “Of course, the fact that a subpoena demanding information is issued does not necessarily mean the information exists. Nevertheless, the issuance of a subpoena implies that the issuer has a good-faith basis to believe it does. On that score, it has previously been reported that the committee’s chairman, Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), has reviewed intelligence reporting and detected instances of unmasking.”
The Russia investigation is intriguing because so much of it appears to be hearsay. Democrats are clamoring for impeachment despite the fact that most of the evidence that exists indicts them far more than the president. Team Obama engaged in shady, underhanded practices whereas Trump’s worst sin is his refusal to repulse Vladimir Putin. A “sin” that may result in reduced tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
Powers was considered to be incompetent even before Obama left office. Her tenure was marked by weak indecision. She never spoke up about the war in Syria, nor did she defend U.S. ally Israel from the United Nation’s repeated attacks.
However, her current crisis may represent the lowest moment in her career.
Devil’s Bargain Book: Bannon Warned Ailes of Megyn Kelly’s Looming Betrayal Nearly a Year Before
Stephen K. Bannon warned Roger Ailes that Megyn Kelly was going to be a problem—and Ailes, at first, did not take him seriously, a new book reveals in the course of multiple explosive sections over two chapters.
Bannon is the former executive chairman of Breitbart News Network who went on to become the CEO of President Donald Trump’s successful campaign and now White House Chief Strategist in Trump’s administration. The revelations about Ailes and Kelly—which recount Breitbart News’s coverage critical of Kelly’s performance at the first GOP presidential primary debate in August 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio—come in a new book by Bloomberg’s Josh Green titled Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.
In Chapter 8, Green writes about how the GOP base had a vehemently anti-Fox News reaction to Kelly’s performance in that Cleveland debate, in which she badgered Trump with over-the-top questions. Green writes:
Bannon and the Breitbart editors had the same reaction and immediately turned on Megyn Kelly, with a fusillade of negative articles. She became the newest Breitbart narrative: the back-stabbing, self-promoting betrayer-of-the-cause. And Breitbart became the locus of pro-Trump, anti-Fox conservative anger. Between Thursday night, when the debate took place, and Sunday evening, Breitbart published twenty-five stories on Kelly, and the site’s editor in chief, Alex Marlow, went on CNN to accuse Fox News of ‘trying to take out Donald Trump’ and staging ‘a gotcha debate.’
After a number of pieces from Breitbart News exposing Kelly’s agenda—including a lengthy one that exposed her lack of objectivity and open point of view being anti-Trump—Kelly was “furious” and begged then Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes to intervene. Ailes has since passed away, but before he did he stepped down as chairman and CEO of Fox News. Bannon and Ailes—who were previously very close—did not speak again for “almost a year” after Ailes begged Bannon unsuccessfully on Kelly’s behalf to hold back Breitbart News criticisms of her transgressions against journalistic integrity.
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Green writes on the subject:
Word spread through the building that Kelly was furious and had personally complained to Ailes. By Sunday, the attacks against her showed no sign of letting up, as other conservative opinion makers, such as radio host Mark Levin, agreed that her questions to Trump had been ‘unfair.’ In a panic, Ailes called Bannon and begged him to call off the attacks. ‘Steve, this isn’t fair, and it’s killing us,’ Ailes said. ‘You have to stop it.’ ‘Fuck that, that was outrageous what she did!’ Bannon retorted. ‘She pulled every trick out of the leftist playbook.’ ‘You’ve gotta knock this crap off, Steve.’ ‘Not until she backs off Trump—she’s still going after him on her show.’ ‘She’s the star of this network! Cut it out!’ The call ended without resolution. Bannon and Ailes would not speak again for almost a year.
Bannon, Green added, was “irritated” by the “sudden outpouring of support Kelly was receiving from people whom he considered sworn enemies of the conservative cause” like “Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the ‘whole fucking cast’ of CNN, and—most gallingly—Hillary Clinton, who he felt never met a gender controversy she wouldn’t exploit for political gain.”
Green then points to a jointly-bylined piece by Bannon and Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow ripping Kelly apart in a “point-by-point indictment of Kelly’s alleged transgressions.”
The headline was “The Arrogance of Power: Megyn Kelly’s ‘Good Journalism.’”
“While it was an unvarnished depiction of Breitbart editorial sentiment, the piece served a double purpose: it kept the fight going,” Green wrote. “As Bannon confessed to an associate, “The [Web] traffic is absolutely filthy!””
Later, Fox News tried again to get Breitbart News to back off Kelly—something Bannon, whom Green wrote “remained a problem” because “Breitbart wasn’t relenting,” would not do. In that part, Bannon warned Ailes nearly a year before she actually did so that Kelly was going to turn on him.
In another excerpt from the book, Green writes:
In fact, its attacks on Kelly were growing more personal. ‘Flashback: Megyn Kelly Discusses Her Husband’s Penis and Her Breasts on Howard Stern,’ read a Breitbart headline on the one-week anniversary of the debate. Not knowing what else to do, Ailes dispatched his personal lawyer, Peter Johnson, Jr., to the Breitbart Embassy in Washington, D.C., to deliver a personal message to Bannon to end the war on Kelly. Bannon loathed Johnson, whom he referred to privately as ‘that nebbishy, goofball lawyer on Fox & Friends’—Johnson had leveraged his proximity to Ailes to become a Fox News pundit. When he arrived at the Embassy, Johnson got straight to the point: if Bannon didn’t stop immediately, he would never again appear on Fox News. ‘You’ve got a very strong relationship with Roger,’ Johnson warned. ‘You’ve gotta stop these attacks on Megyn. She’s the star. And if you don’t stop, there are going to be consequences.’ Bannon was incensed at the threat. ‘She’s pure evil,’ he told Johnson. ‘And she will turn on him one day. We’re going full-bore. We’re not going to stop. I’m gonna unchain the dogs.’ The conversation was brief and unpleasant, and it ended with a cinematic flourish. ‘I want you to go back to New York and quote me to Roger,’ Bannon said. ‘Go fuck yourself.’
Sure enough, Bannon was right again: Kelly, the following summer, turned on Ailes and accused him of sexual misconduct. Ailes was on the way down—but not before he turned back to Bannon to ask him for help one last time, a request that Bannon obliged. The political fireworks between Kelly and Ailes happened at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland—where the feud between Kelly and Trump first burst wide open a year before—and Trump was running into some issues with Fox News not having the credibility it once had as the Ailes scandal consumed the network.
Green writes, now in Chapter 9:
Trump was still banking on his ability to dominate news coverage, which was free. But here, too, a problem had emerged,” Fox News, which had dutifully fallen in line after Trump’s win, was engulfed in scandal after Gretchen Carlson, a longtime anchor, filed a lawsuit on July 6 charging Roger Ailes with sexual harassment. Three days later, New York published the accounts of six more women who claimed Ailes harassed them. The TV legend, once thought invincible, suddenly looked less so. Rupert Murdoch had always protected him. But Murdoch was eighty-five years old, and his sons James and Lachlan, both top executives at Fox’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, took a dim view of Ailes. Desperate for allies who would aggressively defend him, Ailes reached out to Bannon through an intermediary. The two hadn’t spoken since their fight over Megyn Kelly the year before. But Bannon was sympathetic, believing that the timing of the lawsuit against Ailes was no accident—and was meant to overshadow Trump’s convention, set to begin on July 18.
Bannon obliged and called Ailes to help him out. Green wrote:
He called Ailes at his home and reached his wife, Beth. ‘Steve, I’m so glad you called,’ she said, passing the phone to her husband. Ailes was blunt: ‘I need air cover.’ Bannon was surprised at his desperation. ‘He was babbling,’ he later told an associate. ‘He was in the fucking mumble tank.’ The two men talked for an hour. In the end, Bannon agreed to put a reporter on the story and told Ailes he would ‘put up as spirited a defense as possible—typical Breitbart stuff.’ But when 21st Century Fox hired the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation of the charges, Bannon decided that Ailes was finished and called to tell him so. ‘You know, it’s over now,’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’ Ailes asked. ‘They hired an outside firm,’ Bannon said. ‘They’re moving it out of the building—and you watch, Megyn Kelly will turn on you.’ Ailes scoffed. ‘Rupert’s got my back,’ he said. ‘The boys want to kill me, but Rupert won’t let me go.’ The next day, Ailes called back, less sure of himself. He had tried calling the elder Murdoch, who was vacationing with his wife in the South of France and didn’t take the call. ‘It’s too hard to get through; he’s on a boat,’ Ailes ventured. Bannon told him to get as much money as he could in a settlement and face up to the truth. ‘If somebody called him about a merger, he’d take the fucking call,’ Bannon told Ailes. ‘You’re done.’
Breitbart News ran a number of pieces that questioned Gretchen Carlson’s stories, and uncovered political connections and motivations of the attorneys involved. But it was not enough to stop the downfall of Ailes. And then, sure enough, the news came out shortly thereafter that Kelly turned on Ailes. Bannon was right all along.
“On July 19, the news broke that Kelly had indeed told the Paul, Weiss investigators that Ailes had sexually harassed her. Breitbart dutifully published Ailes’s last-ditch defense, a claim that Fox News’ entire prime-time lineup would quit if Ailes was forced out,” Green wrote. “That evening, New York reported, Ailes was banned from the Fox building, and his company e-mail and phone were shut down. On July 21, just hours before Trump was to formally accept the Republican nomination in Cleveland, Ailes agreed to a $40 million exit package. He was finished.”
This Is How Hot Your City Will Be In The Year 2100
(True Activist) There are still an abundance of people that deny that climate change exists, the United States president being one of them, and yet there is overwhelming evidence that not only suggests otherwise but warns of the impending doom humans will soon face. One such piece of evidence was recently put into interactive map form by Climate Central, an independent organization made up of scientists and journalists researching about climate change and is impact on the public.
The map features the most recent results of research conducted to determine how hot the average high summer temperatures in every major city in the world and it’s not looking promising. The map includes an option to see what would happen if carbon emissions remained as they are today or if they were moderately cut. By “moderate emissions cuts,” the group means that if the world cut their emissions roughly in half, which would still lead to alarming rises in temperature.
For example, if you currently live in New York City, the average high temperature today is 81.8 degrees Fahrenheit. However, by 2100 your summers would start to look like those of Juarez, Mexico, whose summers reach 94 degrees regularly. That’s more than 12 degrees difference in about 80 years, and that’s not even the biggest jump. For those whose temperatures are already sweltering, like Doha, Qatar, there isn’t a city to compare their future temperature to, which would be 116.3 degrees by 2100. If you would like to interact with the map and check your own city, visit this website here.
These figures are especially concerning when considering the fact that global emissions are only set to get worse as time goes on, something that this map doesn’t account for. Though agreements like the Paris Climate Agreement are critical to reducing emissions from the world’s biggest contributors, it’s modest and the U.S. is not even participating in it.
For reference, take the 2003 European heatwave as an example. This heatwave took place between July and August 2003 and most European cities reached near or above 100 degrees, sometimes for as long as 8 days straight. As a result, 70,000 people died from heat-related causes, whether it was from heat stroke or fires caused by the lethal heat, and that was just from a rise of a few degrees for two months. By the time 2100 comes around, the death toll from people dying in relation to the increased heat will likely be immeasurable.
Those living with the luxury of air conditioning and heating likely don’t realize how detrimental the rising temperature will be, but there are many in the world that will suffer as a result. The elderly and children are most prone to death during heatwaves and 2100 is not that far in the future. In addition to reducing your own emissions, get involved by calling your congressmen and speaking with them about the importance of environmentally-friendly legislation.
If you would like access to the interactive map to locate your city and the future of its weather, visit this website here.
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