Wall Street Journal: Porn Star Paid $130K Before Election To Stay Quiet On

The Wall Street Journal (a conservative newspaper I shall note) is reporting Stephanie Clifford, an adult film performer whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, agreed to a $130,000 payment to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter.

A lawyer for President Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Michael Cohen, who spent nearly a decade as a top attorney at the Trump Organization, arranged payment to the woman, Stephanie Clifford, in October 2016 after her lawyer negotiated the nondisclosure agreement with Mr. Cohen, these people said.

Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, has privately alleged the encounter with Mr. Trump took place after they met at a July 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, these people said. Mr. Trump married Melania Trump in 2005.

Mr. Trump faced other allegations during his campaign of inappropriate behavior with women, and vehemently denied them. In this matter, there is no allegation of a nonconsensual interaction.

I wonder if Trump calls the WSJ "fake news?"

The White House dismissed the story calling it "recycled."

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen did not address the payment, but did deny there was any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels.

According to the report, the payment to Daniels was made through the company that owns the National Enquirer. It's well-known the owner is a friend of Donald Trump.

The company claims she was paid to write "fitness columns."

It does cross my mind that this could be a diversion from Trump's woeful racist comments of late...?

Please. The party of "family values" couldn't care less that Trump banged a porn star while Melania was pregnant.

Now if Stormy Daniels was black, then maybe. But this won't move the needle.

— Scott Stern (@ScottAStern) January 12, 2018

Stormy Daniels looks awfully...Norwegian

— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) January 12, 2018

Video: Senate Republican Leaders' Awkward Silence Over Roy Moore Allegations

Forty-four seconds of silence from these Republican leaders as reporters as questions about embattled Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore.

The lawmakers were gathered to promote the reveal of their newly-crafted tax plan, but the ongoing Roy Moore sex scandal was the only thing on reporters' minds.

#Awkward

This is what 44 seconds of Republican senators not responding to questions about Roy Moore sounds like | Analysis by CNN's Chris Cillizza https://t.co/UjrztCYHTH pic.twitter.com/8iDaBN4jEX

— CNN (@CNN) November 10, 2017

(h/t JoeMyGod)

Harvey Weinstein Sex Scandal Blowing Up By The Hour

Harvey Weinstein

It's almost impossible to keep up with the number of women coming forward sharing their stories of unwanted sexual advances, actual sexual attacks and more.

The list of famous and not-so-famous women is incredible: Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Rosanna Arquette, and many many more.

It all began with a blockbuster story in the New York Times last week alleging that Weinstein had paid off sexual accusers for decades. In reaction to that story, Weinstein announced he would take a sabbatical from his company, but the company has now fired him.

Today, there's an even more explosive expose, also published in the New York Times:

When Gwyneth Paltrow was 22 years old, she got a role that would take her from actress to star: The film producer Harvey Weinstein hired her for the lead in the Jane Austen adaptation “Emma.” Before shooting began, he summoned her to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for a work meeting that began uneventfully.

It ended with Mr. Weinstein placing his hands on her and suggesting they head to the bedroom for massages, she said.

“I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,” she said in an interview, publicly disclosing that she was sexually harassed by the man who ignited her career and later helped her win an Academy Award.

She refused his advances, she said, and confided in Brad Pitt, her boyfriend at the time. Mr. Pitt confronted Mr. Weinstein, and soon after, the producer threatened her not to tell anyone else about his come-on. “I thought he was going to fire me,” she said.

Rosanna Arquette, a star of “Pulp Fiction,” has a similar account of Mr. Weinstein’s behavior, as does Judith Godrèche, a leading French actress. So does Angelina Jolie, who said that during the release of “Playing by Heart” in the late 1990s, he made unwanted advances on her in a hotel room, which she rejected.

“I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did,” Ms. Jolie said in an email. “This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”

Additionally, Ronan Farrow has penned an equally devastating account of even more women who were the victims of Weinstein's aggressive nature for The New Yorker:

In the course of a ten-month investigation, I was told by thirteen women that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them, allegations that corroborate and overlap with the Times’s revelations, and also include far more serious claims.

Three women––among them Argento and a former aspiring actress named Lucia Evans—told me that Weinstein raped them, allegations that include Weinstein forcibly performing or receiving oral sex and forcing vaginal sex. Four women said that they experienced unwanted touching that could be classified as an assault. In an audio recording captured during a New York Police Department sting operation in 2015 and made public here for the first time, Weinstein admits to groping a Filipina-Italian model named Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, describing it as behavior he is “used to.” Four of the women I interviewed cited encounters in which Weinstein exposed himself or masturbated in front of them.

Sixteen former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein’s companies told me that they witnessed or had knowledge of unwanted sexual advances and touching at events associated with Weinstein’s films and in the workplace. They and others describe a pattern of professional meetings that were little more than thin pretexts for sexual advances on young actresses and models. All sixteen said that the behavior was widely known within both Miramax and the Weinstein Company.

Included in the piece from The New Yorker is audio captured by one of the women who went to the police about Weinstein's unwanted advances.

Listen below. Warning: this is pretty creepy stuff.

Fox News Host Eric Bolling Suspended Pending Investigation Of Texted X-Rated Pics

Eric Bolling

UPDATE - The New York Times reports Fox News host Eric Bolling has been suspended while the network investigates the allegations.

******************************

What is it about male Fox News folks?

This time the story involves blowhard Eric Bolling who co-hosts the Fox News show "Specialists" and hosts "Cashin' In."

Via Huffington Post:

Eric Bolling, a longtime Fox News host, sent an unsolicited photo of male genitalia via text message to at least two colleagues at Fox Business and one colleague at Fox News, a dozen sources told HuffPost.

Recipients of the photo confirmed its contents to HuffPost, which is not revealing their identities. The women, who are Bolling’s current and former Fox colleagues, concluded the message was from him because they recognized his number from previous work-related and informal interactions. The messages were sent several years ago, on separate occasions.

The women did not solicit the messages, which they told colleagues were deeply upsetting and offensive. One of the recipients said that when she replied to Bolling via text, telling him never to send her such photos again, he did not respond. Four people, outside of the recipients, confirmed to HuffPost they’d seen the photo, and eight others said the recipients had spoken to them about it.

Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News, was ousted last year due to sexual harassment allegations.

Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly also left the network after several women reported being harassed by the host.

Additionally, Fox Business Network host Charles Payne was suspended in July after reports that he harassed a female political analyst.

Payne remains suspension while an investigation into the allegations continues.

Trump Comm Director Jason Miller Abruptly Resigns Amid Sex Scandal Rumors

The new administration hasn't even taken over yet, but it looks like there's already rumors of a sex scandal within Team Trump.

Via the New York Daily News:

Donald Trump’s inner circle was thrown into turmoil Saturday when his newly-named White House communications director resigned after a transition team staffer posted cryptic tweets suggesting he’s a philanderer.

Jason Miller announced that he won’t be joining the Trump administration just two days after he was tapped to lead the White House communications team.

Miller said in a statement that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

“It’s clear they need to be my top priority right now, and this is not the time to start a new job as demanding as White House communications director,” said Miller, whose wife is expecting their second child.

But AJ Delgado, a senior advisor in Trump’s transition team, posted several tweets hinting that Miller was at the center of a sex scandal.

“Congratulations to the baby-daddy on being named WH Comms Director!” she wrote in one now-deleted tweet.

“The 2016 version of John Edwards,” she wrote in another, referring to the disgraced ex-Democratic senator who fathered a child with his mistress.

You'll recall both Miller and Delgado famously spent the night before the last presidential debate at a Las Vegas strip club.

Note: there were no sex scandals during the Obama administration.

ICYMI: Trump used Anthony Weiner's sexting as his closing argument while his spokesman Jason Miller was cheating on his wife with AJ Delgado

— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) December 25, 2016

Scammed: Ashley Madison Hookup Site Had Practically NO Real Female Accounts

According to Gizmodo, who took a serious look at the data dumb from the Ashley Madison cheater's site, an enormous percentage of the "female" accounts were fake.

An ENORMOUS amount were fake.

Then, three data fields changed everything. The first field, called mail_last_time, contained a timestamp indicating the last time a member checked the messages in their Ashley Madison inbox. If a person never checked their inbox, the field was blank. But even if they’d checked their messages only once, the field contained a date and time. About two-thirds of the men, or 20.2 million of them, had checked the messages in their accounts at least once. But only 1,492 women had ever checked their messages. It was a serious anomaly.

The pattern was reflected in another data field, too. This one, called chat_last_time contained the timestamp for the last time a member had struck up a conversation using the Ashley Madison chat system. Roughly 11 million men had engaged in chat, but only 2400 women had.

Overall, the picture is grim indeed. Out of 5.5 million female accounts, roughly zero percent had ever shown any kind of activity at all, after the day they were created.

The men’s accounts tell a story of lively engagement with the site, with over 20 million men hopefully looking at their inboxes, and over 10 million of them initiating chats. The women’s accounts show so little activity that they might as well not be there.

So out of 5.5 million female accounts, the data shows only 1,400 or so had ever checked messages.

Whoa, bros. You got hosed.

Josh Duggar Enters Rehab After News Of Porn Star Hookup

In Touch Weekly reports that Josh Duggar is entering rehab for addiction. According to the In Touch source, Duggar's primary issue is sex addiction.

Shortly after In Touch broke the news, his family posted the following message on their website:

“We are so thankful for the outpouring of love, care and prayers for our family during this most difficult situation with Josh.

"As parents we are so deeply grieved by our son’s decisions and actions. His wrong choices have deeply hurt his precious wife and children and have negatively affected so many others. He has also brought great insult to the values and faith we hold dear.

"Yesterday Josh checked himself into a long-term treatment center. For him it will be a long journey toward wholeness and recovery. We pray that in this he comes to complete repentance and sincere change.

"In the meantime, we will be offering our love, care and devoted support to Anna and our grandchildren as she also receives counsel and help for her own heart and future. During this time we continue to look to God—He is our rock and comfort.

"We ask for your continued prayers for our entire family.”

Josh Duggar's Brother-In-Law Wants His Sister Out Of Marriage With "That Pig"

A new week, a new bit of scandal for the Duggar clan.

Word is that Josh Duggar's brother-inlaw, Daniel Keller, is over the fast and furious debacles constantly spiraling in the news (Ashley Madison accounts, hidden Facebook pages)  and wants his sister out of her marriage with - as Keller refers to Josh - "that pig."

While Anna says she's not going anywhere, her brother took to Facebook over the weekend to make clear his position.

Via Raw Story:

On Sunday, Jessa Duggar Seewald, Josh’s sister, posted a verse from the Christian Bible’s Gospel of John to Facebook, which read, in part, “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, and we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

“If we confess our sins,” it said, “he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

In the comments, Keller wrote, “You have to confess and forsake your sin to have mercy. Not sin confess and repeat.”

“Think for a min about the victims,” said Keller in response to a comment left on his post. “Tell me how you would feel if someone cheated on your sister and brought so much disgrace to you and ur family.”

Elsewhere, he wrote, “Confessing and getting caught are two different things. You want to know what happens when you cover ur sin maybe you should go read ur bible instead of beating people over the head with it.”

Thinking about the way his sister has been wronged by Josh Duggar, Keller said, makes him “sick”.

“I have told her I would pay for her to move out here w me and pay for her kidz. I don’t think josh will see that this is a big deal and be truly broken till that happens,” he said.

“I told her I would go get her and her children stay w me. She said she’s staying where she’s at. But I won’t stop trying to get that pig out of our family,” Keller concluded. “I tell you who I don’t give a s— about is that pig she calls her husband.”

Dan Savage: Josh Duggar's Hypocritical Past Makes Him Legitimate Target For Outing

Josh Duggar

LGBT activist and sex columnist Dan Savage says that newly outed porn addict Josh Duggar is definitely a legitimate target for outing considering the harm he's caused through his anti-gay campaigns.

Outing someone for their private sexual conduct—even if everyone agrees that it's wrong—is a brutal tactic that should be reserved for brutes. Who's a legitimate target for outing? I'll let Barney Frank explain: "There's a right to privacy," Frank said on Real Time. "But the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. People who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door, and do it themselves."

To which I would add: People who accuse others of trying to destroy their marriages, fundamentalists who who quite literally demonize other people, and who then go back to their apartments in Washington, DC, and cheat on their spouses are political hypocrites and legitimate targets for outing. People like this guy...

Savage also joined Chris Hayes last night to discuss the recent Duggar developments.

More Duggar Scandal - Josh Duggar Had Secret Facebook Page

According to RadarOnline, there's still more in the Josh Duggar sex scandal closet.

Now, it appears that in addition to his Ashley Madison accounts and admitting to being "unfaithful" to his wife, RadarOnline has found a secret Facebook page attributed to Josh Duggar where he follows and is "friends" with lingerie models and strippers.

Josh admitted to signing up for cheaters website Ashley Madison with the email address joesmithsonnwa@gmail.com, and there is a Facebook account registered to that address under the name Joe Smithson.

According to the profile, “Smithson” was posting on the site as far back as 2004 — four years before Josh married Anna.

“Smithson” is friends with 32 women, mostly attractive and young, and from the area of Arkansas where he lived before leaving for a political career in Washington, DC.

He’s also a follower of a dancer at Sensations Gentleman’s Club in Arkansas, a lingerie model, and a curvy blonde blogger.

According to the profile, Smithson was active on the site as recently as January 2014, one year after Duggar began working with the Family Research Council.

Internet Meme Of The Day

(via Twitter)

Michigan Republican Attempts To Cover His Extra-Marital Affair By Starting False Gay Rumor About Himself

Michigan lawmakers Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat

I mean, you really can't make this stuff up.

Michigan GOP lawmaker Rep. Todd Courser attempted to cover up his real extramarital affair with another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Cindy Gamrat (both straight, married to other people, several kids each) by having his aide spread false gay rumors about him.

See, that way, when the truth came out about his real affair it wouldn't seem so bad. Got it?

From Queerty:

It would have worked perfectly (but really though, would it have?) had Ben Graham, Courser’s aide at the time, not recorded the whole thing. Graham refused to send the email, and was promptly fired. (Side note: Gamrat also fired her aide who was unwilling to assist in the coverup.)

In the recordings, Courser was heard asking Graham to send the email and get “nasty about it” by saying the lawmaker was addicted to porn and was a “sexual deviant.”

The two lawmakers are married with children, and have worked in tandem to actively block same-sex marriage even after the Supreme Court’s June decision. Because Jesus. And freedom.

You can hear the recorded meetings over at DetroitNews.com