Melania Stoops to Conquer Tarpley

originally posted by: Nucleardoom
a reply to: ipsedixit

Trump is on the ropes. Let's finish him, but coldly. It's not the time to become part of the mob.

Nice fairy tale you've got there. On the ropes? Hardly...here's a couple election season tips:

1) Don't trust the MSM narrative because it's pure bullsh*t.

2) Nobody is talking about the key to this election - the silent majority.

Trump 2016

2016 Electoral Math — Hillary Moves Up

Donald Trump has 19 states firmly in his corner right now. That may sound impressive, at least until you consider that only three of them have 10 or more EV (and Tennessee and Indiana only have 11 EV each). The only big prize that Trump can count on is Texas, with its whopping 38 EV. Other than that, Trump is winning a lot of very rural states without a lot of population, which only gives him a total of 145 EV that he can currently count on. This leaves him an enormous 125 EV to make up if he has any prayer of winning. Trump only has two states even leaning his direction right now, and Missouri and South Carolina only have 19 EV between them. Even if you add in all the Leans Trump and Too Close To Call states, Trump only comes up with a grand total of 212 EV. That is 58 EV short of the goal.

Hillary Clinton has built on her enormous advantage this week. Last time around she had 18 states with a combined 210 EV in her pocket. This time around, Clinton has 23 states she can count on, and they add up to 273 EV. This is three more than she needs to win. Right now, Clinton could lose every current tossup state (even the ones leaning her direction), and she’d still win the election. To put this another way, Clinton doesn’t even need the following states to claim victory: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio. Trump could run the table in all these battlegrounds, and she’d still win. If you add in the three states leaning her direction, Clinton now has 326 EV. Trump’s number, by comparison, is 164 EV. She’s currently beating him by 162 EV — meaning her total is almost exactly double Trump’s total.

You can choose to keep your head in the sand, but it's going to only make it THAT much worse for you come election day.

PS: They said the same thing during Romney's election. "Don't trust the media and the polls. Romney is doing MUCH better." Then he lost. Just like the polls were showing.

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: windword

I hear you. I'm not sure what prompted Webster's apology and retraction. It may have been a "shot across the bow" from Donald Trump's lawyers.

Could possibly be spreading slander and libel against someone without proof? And they were wrong. What other reasons do you need?

a reply to: jjkenobi

could be. but, we know she lied about her degree. word is trump wanted her lie to keep up appearance back when they first started dating. her being an "escort" wouldn't surprise me in the least. I wish they had just been honest about all this, I think more would have connected with her if she had.

a reply to: jjkenobi

The lawyer's letter led to the apologies and retractions, although they might have occurred eventually anyway. The Daily Mail, apparently, has not issued an apology for their story, which is written in a more "legally sensitive" manner.

www.washingtonpost.com...

The Daily Mail had not issued a retraction as of Monday evening. It appears to be in a different position, having mentioned the Suzy report only briefly in a broader article about Melania Trump. What's more, the Daily Mail article is skeptical of the escort claim:

Earlier this month, a Slovenian magazine, Suzy, published a front page story claiming Melania’s modelling agency in New York, run by New York entrepreneur, Paolo Zampolli, also operated as an escort agency for wealthy clients. . . .

This week, the Mail spoke to the author of the piece, under the condition of anonymity. He insisted the seemingly fantastical story was correct, but all he would say to corroborate it was the information came from sources in America.

Mr Zampolli, however, was very clear. He told the Mail the allegations were "[expletive] rubbish." "My agency was never an escort agency. . . . Come on," he said.

There is no evidence to back up these startling claims made in Suzy magazine.

Of course, decent editors would run a retraction of false claims as soon as it became known that they were false, without hearing from lawyers. Due diligence would seem to require verification of claims made, in any piece of journalism, but repeating false or unverified claims is a gray area. One can easily verify that the claims have been made, and one is reporting that fact, without having to actually verify the claims themselves. In a political campaign it would be very tempting to step into that gray zone.

This linked article discusses Melania's immigration status:

www.univision.com...

My understanding is that her model agency employer sponsored her. He is also reported to have been a partner with Donald Trump in some development projects.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

2016 Electoral Math — Hillary Moves Up

Donald Trump has 19 states firmly in his corner right now. That may sound impressive, at least until you consider that only three of them have 10 or more EV (and Tennessee and Indiana only have 11 EV each). The only big prize that Trump can count on is Texas, with its whopping 38 EV. Other than that, Trump is winning a lot of very rural states without a lot of population, which only gives him a total of 145 EV that he can currently count on. This leaves him an enormous 125 EV to make up if he has any prayer of winning. Trump only has two states even leaning his direction right now, and Missouri and South Carolina only have 19 EV between them. Even if you add in all the Leans Trump and Too Close To Call states, Trump only comes up with a grand total of 212 EV. That is 58 EV short of the goal.

Hillary Clinton has built on her enormous advantage this week. Last time around she had 18 states with a combined 210 EV in her pocket. This time around, Clinton has 23 states she can count on, and they add up to 273 EV. This is three more than she needs to win. Right now, Clinton could lose every current tossup state (even the ones leaning her direction), and she’d still win the election. To put this another way, Clinton doesn’t even need the following states to claim victory: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio. Trump could run the table in all these battlegrounds, and she’d still win. If you add in the three states leaning her direction, Clinton now has 326 EV. Trump’s number, by comparison, is 164 EV. She’s currently beating him by 162 EV — meaning her total is almost exactly double Trump’s total.

You can choose to keep your head in the sand, but it's going to only make it THAT much worse for you come election day.

PS: They said the same thing during Romney's election. "Don't trust the media and the polls. Romney is doing MUCH better." Then he lost. Just like the polls were showing.

MSM math and polls??? I've got some poll numbers too, but don't put too much stock into them. That's why I didn't post it, but since you like numbers here a poll for you:

www.latimes.com...

Poll is shown in graph form on that page.

That poll seems to portray a much tighter race than the MSM narrative your trying to promote.

Hmmm... But she was supposedly up 15 points after the convention and email scandal.

What happened to that fabricated jump in the polls? You can go ahead and eat that pure bullsh*t the MSM is serving up to you, I'll pass as I'm not fond of consuming fecal matter.

a reply to: ipsedixit

Bill shoved cigars up womens vaginas while in office and the world was cool with it.

Who cares if she was or wasnt.

a reply to: Nucleardoom

That's just link to the LA Times' homepage. No poll though, but I am aware of the poll you are referring to. There is a reason that poll is flawed, but nevertheless it is literally the ONLY poll saying Trump is in the lead. If any poll is to be taken with a grain of salt it would be the only out liar among all the polls taken across the country.

a reply to: Nucleardoom

Thanks for the link to the LA Times/USC poll. Here is another link where the poll is discussed in detail.

cesrusc.org...

This poll differs in methodology from "traditional" (using their word) polls.

First, it allows us to ask the same people for their opinion repeatedly over time. In comparison to most polls, this leads to much more stable outcomes; changes that we see are true changes in people's opinions and not the result of random fluctuations in who gets asked the questions.

Second, we may be more accurately capturing the likely votes of a greater number of voters in the crucial “middle” (i.e., not closely aligned with either candidate) by allowing respondents to more precisely assign their own numerical probability (or percent chance) to both the likelihood that they will vote and the likelihood that they will vote for a particular candidate. By comparison, traditional polls may not be fully capturing the intentions of these voters because they rely on less precise qualitative metrics (such as somewhat likely and somewhat unlikely) when asking respondents to indicate for whom they may vote and the likelihood that they will vote.

The proof of this methodology will come as we go along. It does look like this poll is placing the candidates closer together than does the RCP average of polls. They are either right or they are wrong about how the candidates are splitting the vote. We'll see.

a reply to: tadaman

Only Donald and Melania, apparently. Probably the RNC too. Everybody else seems to want all the details.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Nucleardoom

That's just link to the LA Times' homepage. No poll though, but I am aware of the poll you are referring to. There is a reason that poll is flawed, but nevertheless it is literally the ONLY poll saying Trump is in the lead. If any poll is to be taken with a grain of salt it would be the only out liar among all the polls taken across the country.

It's a link directly to the page with the poll shown in graph form, so I'm not sure why you didn't find it. I wouldn't have posted the poll but you seem to try to validate your position using the MSM numbers to back up your position. Any poll I post will immediately be discredited somehow as an "outlier" poll or lacking credibility because of (insert obscure reason here).
That's why I don't generally take stock in any of those polls. After what was spotlighted in those DNC emails regarding media collusion in the primaries you should be asking yourself if anything they present is anything other than bullsh*t.

a reply to: Nucleardoom
In other words, you don't take stock in polls because you can't be bothered to argue the finer points of their merits and just instead assume they are all wrong.

Well that may work for you, but that doesn't work for us people who like to deny ignorance and know how to dissect evidence to learn which is good evidence and which is bad evidence. I mean, to me, a SINGLE poll that says a different picture than the rest of the polls screams for a closer look and when you look closer you find that the polling procedure for that poll is really warped because it is a "tracking poll". I had never heard of a tracking poll before I heard about that poll a few days ago, but there it is.

You seem to function under the assumption that all evidence is equal. That isn't true.

If you want to see the story that is the main object of concern in the Trump household, go to:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

WARNING: If you follow the link and read the story, you will learn all of the unsubstantiated details in question and you will see more of Melania than she shows to anyone but Donald Trump, nowadays.

The Daily Mail has had to make payouts to people objecting to stories before. They are owned by a large media conglomerate in the UK and have very deep pockets. They are well diversified, as a company. It is unlikely that they are afraid of Donald Trump. Their legal department is undoubtedly top notch.

The mere fact that the story is still on their website, after receiving a cease and desist instruction from Mr. Trump's lawyer, is an augury of interesting times to come, possibly in court. They seem to be ready to go to the mat over this story.

I suspect that any hesitancy to go to court over the matter, on the Trump side, is as much about Melania's "status" in the US in 1995, as about the allegations of "escort work". The Daily Mail, either has witnesses and documentation that they haven't made public, or they don't have them.

If they do not have them, there might still be enough revelations about Mr. and Mrs. Trump's relationship, that, if made public during a court case, could be damaging enough to the candidate to cause very careful assessments of whether it would be worth the trouble to proceed legally against the Daily Mail.

As another poster pointed out. American voters are very tolerant, on a case by case basis, of behavioral issues with their public figures, and Melania is generally well liked, I think.

The Daily Mail has, for whatever reason, removed the story linked in the above post.

I doubt if we well see it again without some kind of hard verification of it.

OMG!!!

Melania Trump is suing the Daily Mail and Webster Tarpley!!!! for 150 million dollars!

www.theguardian.com...

Lawyers for Melania Trump on Thursday filed suit for $150m damages against the Daily Mail in Maryland state court. The wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is also suing a blogger, Webster Tarpley, from the state in question.

In a statement, Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, said: “These defendants made several statements about Mrs Trump that are 100% false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation [and] broadcast their lies to millions of people throughout the US and the world – without any justification.

“Their many lies include, among others, that Mrs Trump supposedly was an ‘escort’ in the 1990s before she met her husband. Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs Trump that her damages are estimated at $150m.”

Oh boy. I suspect that the vehemence with which Webster has been labeling Donald Trump a fascist might have something to do with his inclusion in the lawsuit. He really only mentioned the rumors about Mr. Trump's wife, Melania, in passing.

This is the sort of thing that could ruin somebody like Tarpley, if successful.

Webster has published a statement in response to the filing of the lawsuit, on his website. I quote it here:

tarpley.net...

Melania Trump’s lawsuit against me is without merit. Mrs. Trump is a public figure actively engaged in the Trump for president campaign. We are confident that Mrs. Trump will not be able to meet her high burden of proving the statements published about her on my website were defamatory in any way. Her lawsuit is a blatant attempt to intimidate not only me but journalists of all stripes into remaining silent with regard to public figures. This lawsuit is a direct affront to First Amendment principles and free speech in our democratic society.
—Webster G. Tarpley

The Guardian article goes on to quote an appellate lawyer from Baltimore, suggesting a possible reason for the inclusion of Webster Tarpley in the lawsuit:

Steve Klepper, an appellate lawyer for the Baltimore law firm Kramon & Graham, said the inclusion of a blogger in the suit indicated legal maneuvering.

He told the Guardian: “Anytime you have a filing that adds a minor in-state defendant, it’s a flag that they were joined to prevent removal to federal court. And as we know, Donald Trump has not been having been the best luck in federal court recently.”

Klepper pointed to a Maryland defamation statute that might provide a basis for Melania Trump’s suit. It reads: “A single or married woman whose character or reputation for chastity is defamed by any person may maintain an action against that person.”

I haven't seen this reported in the Washington Post or the New York Times, which is odd. Maybe I overlooked it.

Yes, both papers have items about this lawsuit. The Post says that the action seeks a minimum of $75,000 from each defendant.

Here is a link to the Daily Mail's retraction:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

In it, they make it abundantly clear that the rumors they were repeating were noted as unsubstantiated and were vehemently denied in quotations in their original story.

If I were to take an unsubstantiated rumor about you that I heard from a Slovenian journalist and spread it all over the neighborhood (the world), like an innocent fool, surely, then am I not a victim of these rumors, myself, and would not, therefore, your honor, a lawsuit against me, be nothing more than a spiteful revictimization of an already victimized person, myself, surely? Who cares about Melania's reputation!? I'm the one (the Daily Mail and Webster) suffering here!! Surely.

. . . . would be the line taken in court if I were representing the defendants in this case, surely.

a reply to: ipsedixit

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much! Unless she's being accused of prostitution, there's nothing illegal, immoral or disrespectable about being a paid escort, especially of the caliber companionship and banter that Melania most certainly was able to provide. She does a disservice to models, and men and women of any walk of life everywhere who take side jobs attending events with high profile ladies and gentlemen who gladly pay for their public professionalism.

The fact that she's using her money to silence journalist who say things about her that she finds troubling, through frivolous litigious remedies, says more about her personal guilt and desire to hide her past as well as illustrates what a petty and vain first lady she would make.

a reply to: windword

The thing that troubles me most about this thing, to be perfectly frank, is the timing of it. I think it indicates faulty judgment on the part of Donald Trump.

The American public made it perfectly clear in the case of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, by re-electing Bill Clinton, that they don't care about sexual stuff in the context of presidential politics. Substantive issues are more important.

So why is Trump (Donald) pursuing this, at this time?

To me this speaks of an impulsive and spiteful nature. He's like a bull charging a red cape in this situation.

Nobody cares about a rumored scarlet past for Melania. People like Melania. They are charmed by her. She's exotic and interesting. She is a mother of a young child. People like that kind of thing. This is a tempest in a teapot and unless there were legal issues related to the timing of filings of this sort, I would forget about it until after the election. The easiest way to do away with scurrilous rumors that have no connection to one's present life is to ignore them completely and just continue being the wonderful person that she is.

The Duke of Wellington said it best, "Publish and be damned." People remember the quote. They don't remember the issue.

In this week's World Crisis Radio program at tarpley.net Webster does something of an overview of his legal situation, putting it into the context of the traditional line taken in US courts of upholding the 1st Ammendment to the constitution, specifically as it relates to the right of the press to publish freely their observations and estimations of public figures in the United States.

As always, Webster was very informative on the subject. The man is a walking encyclopedia of American history.

Webster is asking for support against what he considers to be an attempt to quell press interest in the background of the Republican candidate and his wife. He suggests that people could support him in his battle by subscribing to his new five day a week internet radio broadcast, The American System at

americansystem.tv...

I tried to do so but was prevented by a request for a cell phone number before I could make my payment. This is a problem. I don't have a cell phone. If somebody would remove this impediment to subscriptions from the indigent, I would be happy to give my support. (Note. Problem solved. I just closed the window and was able to conclude the purchase. Didn't think of it in the moment.)

Webster didn't discuss the legal details of the case, whether a court date has been set or whether there are communications going on between the defendants in the case and the lawyer acting on behalf of Melania Trump. I'm sure we will learn all in due course.

Webster did mention that it is unprecedented for a politician (or spouse), operating at this presidential level of American politics, to sue a journalist, which underlines Donald Trump's exceptionalism, perhaps a better term would be assertive authoritarianism, on the American political scene.

I think Donald Trump would blow all his gaskets if he lived in 19th century Tennessee , which, journalistically speaking, was not unlike the only slightly fictional Tennessee of Mark Twain's famous description. (* See link at bottom)

fullreads.com...

I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance, alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. He ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said:

“Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!”

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plow through another man’s verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear.

Maybe Mr. Trump would be happier in that environment, where a well placed shot through a window might mar the symmetry of a critic's ear. Of course journalists of the time were ready to return fire.

Lively discussion is a part of the American Tradition and should be preserved. Going to the courts to stifle it is not the American way. If Mr. Trump doesn't like what has been said about Melania, he should answer back, not with writs, and certainly not with bullets, but with a verbal fusillade of his own.

Twain gives numerous examples in his piece. Here is an appropriate tone in which Mr. Trump could respond to Melania's tormentors.

The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense.

“Now that is the way to write–peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods.”

Perhaps the same nitwit who composed Melania's address to the RNC could get down to business giving Webster and the Daily Mail the verbal "cowhidings", which I am "shure" they so richly deserve.

* www.thedailytimes.com...[ed itby]edit on 4-9-2016 by ipsedixit because: (no reason given)