Jared Kushner’s BFF, Mr. Bone Saw, is having another bad media week.
Reuters:
Saudi Arabia had “absolutely nothing to do” with the National Enquirer’s reporting on an extramarital relationship involving Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, the kingdom’s minister of state for foreign affairs said.
Gee, who’s saying they did?
Jack Shafer/Politico:
Bezos teases the Enquirer and its executives in the sections of the Medium post in which he discusses America Media CEO David Pecker and the company’s closeness to the Saudi government, for which it has done work. He briskly notes that Pecker and the company have been “investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government.” Then he quotes from a New York Times story about how President Trump rewarded Pecker’s loyalty “with a White House dinner to which the media executive brought a guest with important ties to the royals in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Mr. Pecker was pursuing business there while also hunting for financing for acquisitions …”
Having stuck the Saudi scimitar in, Bezos twists it a few paragraphs later, writing, “Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is ‘apoplectic’ about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve.”...
The biggest mistake the Enquirer made was trying to bully somebody who, by dint of his power and pride, couldn’t be bullied. But the Enquirer’s second and more lasting mistake was telling the owner of one of the world’s most influential newspapers what not to cover. Now that Bezos has revealed that demand, the entire fourth estate is chasing that story and won’t stop until they get it.
Oh. Well, then.
An experienced hand:
USA Today:
Could Amazon's Bezos wreck AMI, owner of National Enquirer, with blackmail charges?
The Bezos battle is just one of the controversies surrounding the tabloid group:
► The National Enquirer's editor, Dylan Howard, reportedly colluded with movie producer Harvey Weinstein to discredit women accusing Weinstein of sexual harassment and rape.
► In the run-up to the 2016 election, the National Enquirer published a string of dubious stories about Hillary Clinton's health, sex life and involvement in various conspiracies.
► AMI admitted paying a $150,000 to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal as part of a "catch-and-kill" operation to silence her claims to have had an affair with Trump.
AMI Chairman and CEO David Pecker has close ties to Trump, and the New York Times and the Associated Press have reported that Pecker has used that access to leverage business deals in Saudi Arabia. Bezos said it's the Saudi connection that "seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve."
Nice folks. And/but btw, investigations of Trump ties to illegal monies from foreign governments won’t be limited to Russia. That might be why he’s freaking out these days.
He’s really into that theme. Keeps repeating it. Like, every day. You scared, bro? You seem scared.
TPM:
Unsealed Manafort Transcript Reveals Inner Workings Of Mueller Probe
Weissman told the judge that an Aug. 2, 2016 meeting at a Manhattan cigar bar, in particular, was “of significance to the special counsel.” The conversation at the Grand Havana Club occurred just days before Manafort left the campaign amid scrutiny of his ties to Russia and Ukraine.
“This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating,” Weissmann said. “There is an in-person meeting at an unusual time for somebody who is the campaign chairman to be spending time, and to be doing it in person.”
During his proffer sessions with the special counsel, Manafort said that discussions about a possible Ukrainian peace plan that would have benefited Russia ended with that in-person conversation. But prosecutors say they have evidence that Manafort and Kilimnik also discussed Ukraine policy in December 2016, over the inauguration in January 2017, in February 2016 and “even in the winter of 2018,” according to Weissman.
Morning Consult:
Trump’s Popularity Slumps to Record Low in January
President posts negative net approval rating in 32 states
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A majority of voters in 12 states approved of Trump’s job performance, while a majority disapproved in 27 states.
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Trump’s best numbers came in Wyoming and West Virginia; his worst numbers were in the District of Columbia and Vermont.
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Record numbers of Democrats and independents disapproved of Trump in January
Don’t forget he still has wall caving to come to grips with. Not sure how wall caves will solve our Mexican border issues, but maybe he can license his name to them.
This is from the NYT Business section because progressives always start off the morning with the business section:
For Democrats Aiming Taxes at the Superrich, ‘the Moment Belongs to the Bold’
The only thing more startling than the flurry of tax proposals Democrats have unveiled in recent weeks is the full-throttle response they’ve gotten from the public.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested a near doubling of the top income tax rate. Senator Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the party, introduced a bill to raise taxes on dynastic heirs. And Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed a levy that has never existed in the United States: a wealth tax, assessed annually on America’s biggest fortunes.
The soak-the-rich plans — ones that were only recently considered ridiculously far-fetched or political poison — have received serious and sober treatment, even by critics, and remarkably broad encouragement from the electorate. Roughly three out of four registered voters surveyed in recent polls supported higher taxes on the wealthy. Even a majority of Republicans back higher rates on those earning more than $10 million, according to a Fox News poll conducted in mid-January.
Meanwhile in Virginia:
WaPo:
Virginians are split on governor’s fate amid blackface scandal, poll shows
Virginians are deadlocked over whether Gov. Ralph Northam (D) should step down after the emergence of a photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook page depicting people in blackface and Ku Klux Klan garb, with African Americans saying by a wide margin that he should remain in office despite the offensive image, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
The poll, conducted Wednesday through Friday, finds residents split over Northam’s fate, with 47 percent wanting him to step down and 47 percent saying he should stay on. Northam counts higher support among black residents — who say he should remain in office by a margin of 58 percent to 37 percent — than among whites, who are more evenly divided.
That will allow him to dig in. Meanwhile, Justin Fairfax is in more trouble right now (he’s accused of a second sexual assault after the poll was taken, 65% say ‘don’t know enough’) and Mark Herring less than Northam:
On the scandals buffeting the state’s other top elected officials, the poll by The Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University finds that about a third of Virginians think Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) should resign after he admitted wearing blackface at a party when he was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia. A 60 percent majority say he should stay in office.
Herring, IMO, survives, Northam might (he does himself no favor every time he talks about it), and Fairfax is in a different category (criminal allegations). More to play out.
Interestingly:
The Post-Schar School poll also finds that 11 percent of residents have either worn blackface — an activity common in 19th-century minstrel shows, which featured white performers portraying African Americans in demeaning ways — or know someone who has.
At the very least, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy, needs to come to grips with its past in a way it has not up until now. There are still a lot of yearbooks out there.
Adam Harris/atlantic:
Yearbooks Aren’t the Only Place to Find Blackface on Campus
There has been a rush to examine yearbooks for examples of racist histories that are modern realities
When blackface or racist incidents keep happening, Kimbrough says, “it’s a feature, not a defect.” Colleges are reflections of the nation; as the nation’s problems go, so too do universities. “There are a lot of campuses that need to truly have that conversation to say: ‘What’s going on?’” he told me. “It’s not, ‘Let’s have a diversity program or a Martin Luther King program’; it has to be much deeper than that.”
“They scapegoat and say, ‘Oh, that was just back then, and people didn’t know better,’” Kimbrough says. “No. It’s happening right now.” On Thursday, Auburn City Schools in Alabama announced that they would be investigating a photo of a student at Auburn High School who wore blackface. The photo is overlaid with the caption, “is this what being a nigger feels like.”
And still a, lot of work to do.
Note that Medicare-for-all is not top priority, preserving pre-existing conditions and lowering drug prices rank higher.
Did you read this far? Here is your reward: