The Stormy Daniels lawyer tweeted that there are more details to come out and "Perfection lies within such details, and this perfection then becomes evident...."

Screenshot of my iPhone first thing this morning....



IN THE COMMENTS: I write:

What detail could there be in the Stormy Daniels story that isn't already out and about?

If it's something that wasn't in the original story that already came out, but something new AND damaging, it will raise the question why is she just putting this detail in now.

Either it's unimportant or it's going to hurt her credibility.

A Reasonable Man immediately says:

Or, she now feels that she is protected from any consequences associated with the NDA.

My response:

Seems to me she gave an interview to In Touch Weekly 6 years ago, and it wasn't published. That was long before there was an NDA. So what does the NDA have to do with the details she gave in that old interview? How could she have felt threatened by something that didn't exist.

I'm sorry, your idea just doesn't make sense to me. I'm assuming she told her story 6 years ago and it wasn't considered worth publishing. Later, it seemed worth publishing (and it did come out and an NDA was done). It might be interesting to see her tell the story now with 60-Minutes level probing and the aura of courage in standing up to the President of the United States, but what new details might there be? I stand by my original question: either the new details are not important or she will seem less credible to be telling a story that is inconsistent with her earlier story.

"I want to point out that my tweet got more than twice as many likes as his tweet. We get under his orange skin."

"Trump’s long-standing issue with the Academy Awards is a shame, Kimmel said, because he thinks Trump would enjoy the best-picture winner, 'The Shape of Water.' 'It’s about a monster that has sex with a woman who can’t talk about it,' Kimmel said. 'Basically, it’s like his life story.'"

From "Jimmy Kimmel and Trump feud over the president’s favorite subject: TV ratings" (WaPo).

IN THE COMMENTS: AReasonableMan said:

Mocking Trump is unlikely to move the needle regarding his political support right now, but it is an entertaining pastime, not unlike listening to the orchestra on the Titanic.

AReasonableMan? More like ABadAnalogyMan. The "orchestra" — an 8-person band — played on the Titanic because "their leader, the violinist Wallace Hartley... a highly principled person and a devout Christian... raised in the Methodist church... [and] had contemplated being on a sinking ship and had already decided how he would respond. He believed that music could prevent panic and create calm. He had also chosen his final piece of music" — "Nearer, My God, to Thee," a song his father, a choirmaster, had introduced to his congregregation. It was not, I don't think, entertainment, but a profound religious experience in the face of impending, certain death.

The Trump presidency is not a hopeless situation, and it might not even be bad, but even for those who think it is terrible and very dangerous, they are not like the doomed passengers on the Titanic, and if they act like they are similarly doomed, they deserve criticism for passivity if they seek pacifying entertainment. Let them look for solutions and find effective things to do. They should act more like people who still have a chance to get themselves and other people onto lifeboats or to call out to other ships to come save them.

If those who think Trump is dangerously destructive are really right and they spend their time consuming Trump-mocking entertainment, they're more like the audience in "Caberet," making light of the rise of Hitler:



ADDED: Here's Jimmy Kimmel making comedy out of opposing women's suffrage:

"... the Old Vic's upcoming production of Girl From the North Country which is written and directed by Conor McPherson with music and lyrics by Bob Dylan."

"Brought to life by a 20-piece company of actors and musicians, award-winning playwright Conor McPherson beautifully weaves the iconic songbook of Bob Dylan into this new show full of hope, heartbreak and soul."

IN THE COMMENTS: AReasonableMan said...

From their web site:

"Duluth, Minnesota. 1934. A community living on a knife-edge huddle together in the local guesthouse. The owner, Nick, owes more money than he can ever repay, his wife Elizabeth is losing her mind and their daughter Marianne is carrying a child no-one will account for. And, when a preacher selling bibles and a boxer looking for a comeback show up in the middle of the night, things start to spiral beyond the point of no return…"

I guess they ran out of cliches at that point, the 'point of no return'.

Ivanka does her perfect-poise routine when Germans hiss and boo at her for talking about her father as a champion of women.

She was on panel — alongside Angela Merkel, Queen Màxima of the Netherlands, and International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagardeon — at the W-20 where the topic was women's empowerment and entrepreneurship at the W-20.

Video at the link.

IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt asked, "How could anyone not like her?," and I answered:

There's something robotic and trancelike about her demeanor. It's interesting to me that people don't dislike her for that glossy, plastic, stage-y quality, which actually reminds me of Hillary Clinton. I don't myself dislike her, but I'm fascinated that people don't call her out for the Stepford Wives aura that so many political women have been mocked for.

But Jackie Kennedy was a similar case. People loved it in her. I guess if you read as beautiful and you don't misbehave, people will accept a woman who seems anesthetized.

And AReasonableMan says, "Drudge's front page currently featuring Ivanka is pretty funny." Here's the part he means, with Ivanka in the middle — looking like a sensibly beautiful woman — flanked by Madonna displaying elongated Jayne-Mansfield-style breasts and some absurdly plastic-surgeried human Barbie doll. Click to enlarge:

Jay Z, performing at a concert for Hillary, said the words that everyone knows are in his songs.

Business Insider writes it out enough so you can see what people heard and what Hillary had to know would be heard:

The rapper repeatedly used the n-word and dropped the f-bomb as he performed “F—WithMeYouKnowIGotIt” and his hit “Dirt off Your Shoulder” song at a Cleveland rally.

"You're tuned into the motherf----- greatest," a voice said as Jay Z appeared onstage.

“If you feelin’ like a pimp n----, go and brush your shoulders off,” Jay Z rapped. “Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off. N----- is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you. Get that dirt off your shoulders."

Jay Z also performed the song "Jigga My N----," in which he boasted that he was "Jay-Z, motherf-------!"

I'd say this is why artists should maintain their separation from politics, but Jay Z chooses to be involved and Hillary's campaign chooses to use him as a tool to access a segment of the population that seems to be hard for her to reach.

At the link, there's video of Jay Z's performance, with the words uncensored. I'd like to see that video spliced into this much-played Hillary Clinton ad:



Use the same children, the same innocent, sweet faces, watching Jay Z and ending with Hillary's solemn intonation: "Our children and grandchildren will look back at this time -- at the choices we are about to make, the goals we will strive for, the principles we will live by -- and we need to make sure that they can be proud of us."

IN THE COMMENTS: AReasonableMan said "Artists get a lot of leeway in how they express themselves that is not open to most other professions." And I say:

Yes, but the criticism is of Clinton. Should she be attaching these words to herself? I think an edgy artist ought to stay separate, but I don't know that Jay Z cares about being a rebellious social critic. The words he uses have been the norm in his genre for decades, so his using them says nothing. I'd have to read more about him to know if he's talking about anything that I'd have to disapprove of.

So that made me go over to Rap Genius and read the lyrics to "Dirt off Your Shoulder." An annotator explains: "Brushing dirt off your shoulder is just a 'pimp' gesture, it shows that yeah, you got knocked down, but you don’t care." So, I get it. It's the same message as the corny old song "Pick Yourself Up" — "Nothing's impossible, I have found/For when my chin is on the ground/I pick myself up/Dust myself off/And start all over again." Same idea. Here, listen to Nat King Cole. You want to say, no, it's not the same as "Pick Yourself Up" because Jay Z is talking about being a drug dealer? Well, then check this out:



UPDATE: Trump talked about it today:

"[Jay-Z] used every word in the book last night... He used language last night that was so bad and then Hillary said, 'I did not like Donald Trump's lewd language.' My lewd language. I tell you what, I've never said what he said in my life. But that shows you the phoniness of politics and the phoniness of the whole system."