There has been exhaustive coverage over the latest tell-all book targeting President Donald Trump. Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” slams her uncle for a series of horrible acts and a lifetime of deceit. However, one allegation has drawn much attention and raises a related issue repeatedly discussed on this blog: Trump allegedly used a friend as a surrogate to take his college entrance test in order to secure a place at the elite Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The problem is that this allegation appears to be untrue if the widow of the named individual is telling the truth. That raises the issue of “defaming the dead” and a common law doctrine that I have spent many years criticizing as unfair and harmful.
According to Mary Trump, Trump’s friend Joe Shapiro took the SAT for him:
“Donald worried that his grade point average, which put him far from the top of the class, would scuttle his efforts to get accepted. To hedge his bets he enlisted Joe Shapiro, a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker, to take his SATs for him. That was much easier to pull off in the days before photo IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well.”
The problem with this account is that Shapiro, who died of cancer in 1999, met Trump at the University of Pennsylvania, which (if true) would make it a bit difficult for him to have cheated on the test for him. His widow, former tennis champion Pam Shriver, was outraged by the allegation against her late husband who she said was known as a person of the highest integrity.
Unless she is lying (which I have no reason to believe), that brings us to the torts question. Such an act would dishonest and has recently been prosecuted as a criminal matter in the infamous college bribery scandal which involved fraudulent test taking. If made falsely, it can be a matter of defamation. Criminal conduct has long been recognized as a per se category of slander under common law torts as well as such categories as moral turpitude and unchastity or impugning professional reputation. These per se categories are often referenced even in states that have removed the distinction between libel and slander. This is an allegation of criminal and unethical conduct.
The problem is that Joe Shapiro is dead. As we have previously discussed with regard to an infamous column by the Toronto Star, the common law rule is that “you cannot defame the dead,” which of course means in practical terms that you can defame the dead. Once again, I have long been a critic of that rule, here. Publishers and movie producers often wait for figures to die to have full license to defame them with no recourse to the family. As I said in 2007:
“Indeed, while most people are raised not to speak ill of the dead, the law fully supports those who do. Under the common-law rules governing defamation, a reputation is as perishable as the person who earned it. It is a rule first expressed in the Latin doctrine actio personalis moritur cum persona (“a personal right of action dies with the person”). The English jurist Sir James Stephen put it more simply in 1887, “The dead have no rights and can suffer no wrongs.” In other words, you’re fair game as soon as you die — even if writers say viciously untrue things about you and your life.”
The current controversy highlights the unfairness and harm caused by this common law rule. Most of us were raised to protect our family names and reputations. Indeed, my father rarely made commands or demands for our future but he made clear that our primary obligation to him was to pass along our family name in as good or better shape than we received it. That does not mean that we are to avoid controversy but most of us spend our lives avoiding allegations of dishonestly, let alone criminal conduct.
Yet, as soon as you die, anyone has total license to smear your reputation. As discussed in the earlier columns, such false portrayals are often the lasting impression of people from popular books or movies.
This would seem an easy case of defamation. If Pam Shriver is telling the truth, there was no chance that this could have happened and Mary Trump could have easily confirmed that fact. The fact that neither she nor the publisher (Simon and Schuster) took the time to confirm that story is telling. This may not have been flagged for fact checking because it did not matter if it was true or not. Shapiro is dead so they knew that they had total license for libel. What is libelous for the living is non-libelous for the dead.
All Shriver can do is object and try to set the record right (as the alleged defamer collects royalties on a false account): “But obviously Joe’s not here to defend himself and say what happened, but I just want to recollect what he told me about where he met Mr. Trump. And I want to thank all of Joe’s close friends and his sister Beth for our talks in the past 24 hours about what an upstanding, outstanding man Joe Shapiro was.”
I would love to see another challenge to this common law rule, but it comes at the risk of an effort to sanction the filing as challenging established law. However, this is the creation of the courts and, while it could be changed by legislation, it should be reconsidered by the courts as inimical to the values underlying defamation law. The doctrine actually encourages the use of the dead to sensational depictions and allegations because they are treated as a “free pass” for possible litigation. The common defamation of the dead shows how the lack of a meaningful sanctions can fuel harmful conduct.
The problem is that the allegation of fraudulent conduct involved two people and one is very much alive: President Trump. He could conceivable sue over this allegation. The standard for defamation for public figures and officials in the United States is the product of a decision decades ago in New York Times v. Sullivan. He would have to prove that his niece had “actual malice” where she had actual knowledge of the falsity of a statement or showed reckless disregard whether it was true or false. The failure to confirm these facts of when the two men first met would be a compelling claim despite the high burden created by the Supreme Court.
This is why the story is so important for reforming this rule. If President Trump were to sue, Shriver could join in the action and separately challenge the common law rule. We could then finally have a substantive debate over the rule that you cannot defame the dead.
The problem is that, under the current rule, there is “never too much” when it comes to defaming the dead and there is “never enough” effort to confirm such facts without the deterrence of defamation lawsuits.
There are two America’s and two justice systems. Many, if not most, Americans think the system is a joke. Torture and warrantless wiretapping were felony crimes, for presidents, for much of the 20th Century. John Kiriakou, who refused to torture, was sent to prison for several years by the US Department of Justice. The DOJ attorneys that committed legal malpractice, green-lighting torture, were not punished but promoted. Today one of those attorneys sits as a federal appeals court judge, standing in judgement over more law-abiding citizens.
The system is a joke! Laws only apply to the little people.
“John Kiriakou, who refused to torture, was sent to prison for several years by the US Department of Justice. ”
He was not sent to prison because he “refused to torture”. He was sent to prison for espionage. You can opine any which way you want on the espionage conviction but saying what you said was inaccurate and foolish.
Allan about John Kirakou: “He was sent to prison for espionage.”
It’s a little more complicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kiriakou
Trial, sentence, and imprisonment
Nearly five years after the Justice Department had concluded Kiriakou committed no crime by giving his 2007 ABC interview, the CIA approached the new Obama Justice Department,[23] already engaged in its own unprecedented crackdown on government leaks,[24] and asked them to reopen the case.[23] On January 23, 2012, Kiriakou was charged with disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee, Deuce Martinez, in classified activities.[25][26][27] In addition, Kiriakou was alleged to have lied to the CIA to have his book published.[28] His lawyer was Robert Trout.[29] Lawyer and whistleblower Jesselyn Radack helped him with the case. She had previously helped NSA official Thomas Andrews Drake in his espionage case.[30]
On April 5, 2012, Kiriakou was indicted for one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, three counts of violating the Espionage Act, and one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA.[31] On April 13, Kiriakou pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on bail.[32]
Starting September 12, 2012, the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia conducted closed Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Kiriakou’s case.[33] On October 22, 2012, he agreed to plead guilty to one count of passing classified information to the media thereby violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; his plea deal spared journalists from testifying in a trial. All other charges were dropped.[34]
On January 25, 2013, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison, making him the second CIA officer to be jailed for revealing classified material of CIA undercover identities,[35] in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, after the 1985 arrest and conviction of Sharon Scranage.[36] New York Times reporter Scott Shane referenced the Kiriakou case when he told NPR that Obama’s prosecutions of journalism-related leaking were having a chilling effect on coverage of national security issues.[37]
In January 2013, Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence adviser to Barack Obama who turned down an offer to be considered for CIA director in 2009, sent the President a letter signed by eighteen other CIA veterans urging that the sentence be commuted.[35] Kiriakou received a prison “send off” party at an exclusive Washington, D.C., hotel hosted by political peace activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and mock prison costumes.[38] On February 28, 2013, Kiriakou began serving his term at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto in Loretto, Pennsylvania.[9] In June 2013, Kiriakou wrote an open “Letter From Loretto” to Edward Snowden expressing his support and giving advice, including “the most important advice that I can offer, DO NOT, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI”.[39]
On July 3, 2013, Kiriakou published an open letter, on Firedoglake, warning former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to beware of being tricked by FBI officials.[40] He warned Snowden to anticipate FBI officials wearing clandestine listening devices who may attempt to betray and entrap him into making comments that, heard out of context, would seem incriminating.
On February 3, 2015, Kiriakou was released from prison to serve three months of house arrest at his home in Arlington, Virginia.[41][42] Following his release, Kiriakou said his case was not about leaking information but about exposing torture, continuing, “and I would do it all over again.” The journalist has now expressed interest in campaigning for prison reform.[42] -about Kiriakou from Wikipedia
It’s not complicated. He was convicted of espionage. That is what happens or is supposed to happen to those that are convicted of espionage. He wasn’t put in jail because he refused to torture.
What might be complicated is whether or not you think he did something wrong for which he was punished but that has nothing to do with the post written by AZ
To be clear:
Kiriakou ‘refused to be trained in so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” and Kiriakou never authorized or engaged in these techniques:”‘
“There are some things we should not do, even in the name of national security.” –John Kiriakou
https://whistleblower.org/bio-john-kiriakou/
“John Kiriakou is a former CIA analyst and case officer, former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former counterterrorism consultant. While employed by the CIA, he was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but refused to be trained in so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” and Kiriakou never authorized or engaged in these techniques:”
Are you too stupid to understand that was not the discussion taking place? The point I made was he wasn’t put in prison because he wouldn’t torture anyone. He was put in prison because he was convicted of espionage.
Everything that you have posted involves how one feels about the conviction and what he did. Reading comprehension is not your strong suit.
Lamebrained Allan said (about Kiriakou): “He was put in prison because he was convicted of espionage.”
He was NOT “convicted of espionage.”
That is why he was arrested but he wasn’t arrested because he “he refused to torture”. Notice how you stay away from what was actually said.
Just say you were wrong, Allan old buddy.
Kiriakou wasn’t “convicted of espionage.”
You were trying to correct AZ and, in doing so, came up short yourself.
It took a lot of posts for you to finally realize that I was correcting an error. Kiriakou was not sent to prison because he “refused to torture”. Now you are maneuvering to salvage your position which was wrong from the start.
The charge against Kiriakou was espionage which may have been accompanied by other charges. That was the basis for arrest and if espionage wasn’t claimed to have been involved he would not have been arrested.
“refused to torture” was the assumed reason he was arrested and tried. It was wrong.
“espionage” was the reason he was arrested and tried.
Whether or not he should have been arrested has nothing to do with correcting “refused to torture” or the discussion that occurred. Whether there was a settlement did not enter the discussion at all.
You wanted to prove how smart you were by copying things from the net, not understanding, but copying. You succeeded in copying but not in learning. There you failed abysmally. You could have entered the discussion to enhance our knowledge of Kiriakou but that was not your objective. Your sole objective was to try to climb the ladder by pulling someone sbove, off. Instead you fell off the ladder and landed in dog Sh1t.
In Kiriakou’s own words:
“I went to prison for disclosing the CIA’s torture. Gina Haspel helped cover it up.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-went-to-prison-for-disclosing-the-cias-torture-gina-haspel-helped-cover-it-up/2018/03/15/9507884e-27f8-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html
The text of the aforementioned article:
By John Kiriakou
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He co-hosts “Loud and Clear” on Sputnik Radio, which is funded by the Russian government.
March 16, 2018 at 5:00 a.m. CDT
I was inside the CIA’s Langley, Va., headquarters on Sept. 11, 2001. Like all Americans, I was traumatized, and I volunteered to go overseas to help bring al-Qaeda’s leaders to justice. I headed counterterrorism operations in Pakistan from January to May 2002. My team captured dozens of al-Qaeda fighters, including senior training-camp commanders. One of the fighters whom I played an integral role in capturing was Abu Zubaida, mistakenly thought at the time to be the third-ranking person in the militant group.
By that May, the CIA had decided to torture him. When I returned to CIA headquarters that month, a senior officer in the Counterterrorism Center asked me if I wanted to be “trained in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.” I had never heard the term, so I asked what it meant. After a brief explanation, I declined. I said that I had a moral and ethical problem with torture and that — the judgment of the Justice Department notwithstanding — I thought it was illegal.
Unfortunately, there were plenty of people in the U.S. government who were all too willing to allow the practice to go on. One of them was Gina Haspel, whom President Trump nominated Tuesday as the CIA’s next director.
Putting Haspel in charge of the CIA would undo attempts by the agency — and the nation — to repudiate torture. The message this sends to the CIA workforce is simple: Engage in war crimes, in crimes against humanity, and you’ll get promoted. Don’t worry about the law. Don’t worry about ethics. Don’t worry about morality or the fact that torture doesn’t even work. Go ahead and do it anyway. We’ll cover for you. And you can destroy the evidence, too.
Described in the media as a “seasoned intelligence veteran,” Haspel has been at the CIA for 33 years, both at headquarters and in senior positions overseas. Now the deputy director, she has tried hard to stay out of the public eye. Mike Pompeo, the outgoing CIA director and secretary of state designee, has lauded her “uncanny ability to get things done and inspire those around her.”
I’m sure that’s true for some. But many of the rest of us who knew and worked with Haspel at the CIA called her “Bloody Gina.”
The CIA will not let me repeat her résumé or the widely reported specifics of how her work fit into the agency’s torture program, calling such details “currently and properly classified.” But I can say that Haspel was a protege of and chief of staff for Jose Rodriguez, the CIA’s notorious former deputy director for operations and former director of the Counterterrorism Center. And that Rodriguez eventually assigned Haspel to order the destruction of videotaped evidence of the torture of Abu Zubaida. The Justice Department investigated, but no one was ever charged in connection with the incident.
CIA officers and psychologists under contract to the agency began torturing Abu Zubaida on Aug. 1, 2002. The techniques were supposed to be incremental, starting with an open-palmed slap to the belly or the face. But the operatives where he was held decided to start with the toughest method. They waterboarded Abu Zubaida 83 times. They later subjected him to sleep deprivation; they kept him locked in a large dog cage for weeks at a time; they locked him in a coffin-size box and, knowing that he had an irrational fear of insects, put bugs in it with him.
Rodriguez would later tell reporters that the torture worked and that Abu Zubaida provided actionable intelligence that disrupted attacks and saved American lives. We know, thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture and the personal testimony of FBI interrogator Ali Soufan , that this was false.
Torture is not a public relations problem
I knew what was happening to Abu Zubaida because of my position in CIA operations at the time. I kept my mouth shut about it, even after I left the CIA in 2004. But by 2007, I had had enough.
President George W. Bush had steadfastly denied to the American people that there was a torture program. I knew that was a lie. I knew torture didn’t work. And I knew it was illegal. So in December 2007, I granted an interview to ABC News in which I said that the CIA was torturing its prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government policy and that the policy had been personally approved by the president. The FBI began investigating me immediately.
A year later, the Justice Department concluded that I had not committed a crime. But CIA leaders were still furious that I had aired the agency’s dirty laundry. The CIA asked the new Obama Justice Department to reopen the case against me. It did, and three years later, I was charged with five felonies , including three counts of espionage, resulting from that ABC News interview and a subsequent interview with the New York Times . Of course, I hadn’t committed espionage, and the charges were eventually dropped, but only after I agreed to plea to a lesser charge. I served 23 months in prison.
It was worth every day. Largely because the CIA’s conduct became public, Congress has specifically prohibited waterboarding and other techniques that the agency used at the secret sites. A ban on torture is now the law of the land.
Psychologists are facing consequences for helping with torture. It’s not enough.
But while I went to prison for disclosing the torture program, Haspel is about to get a promotion despite her connection to it. Trump’s move hurts morale among CIA officers who recognize that torture is wrong. It comforts people at the agency who still believe “enhanced interrogation” is somehow acceptable. I spoke with a senior officer this past week who said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” There’s an attitude of defeatism among opponents of torture.
And the message it sends to our friends and allies (and the countries we criticize in the State Department’s annual human rights reports) is this: We say we’re a shining city on a hill, a beacon of respect for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and the rule of law. But actually, that’s nonsense. We say those things when it’s expedient. We say them to make ourselves feel good. But when push comes to shove, we do what we want, international law be damned.
Trump will have vast powers. He can thank Obama for them.
The meaning of Haspel’s nomination won’t be lost on our enemies, either. The torture program and similar abuses at military-run prisons in Iraq were among the greatest recruitment tools that al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other bad actors ever had, according to legal experts, U.S. lawmakers and even the militants themselves. It energized them and gave them something to rally against. It sowed an even deeper hatred of the United States among militant groups. It swelled their ranks. It was no coincidence that the Islamic State paraded its prisoners in front of cameras wearing orange jumpsuits (like those worn by Guantanamo Bay detainees) before beheading them. Haspel and the others at the CIA who engineered and oversaw the torture program are at least partially responsible for that, because they showed the world how the United States sometimes treats captives.
Do we Americans want to remain a nation that tortures people, like North Korea, China and Iran? Are we proud of the era when we snatched people from one country and sent them to another to be interrogated in secret prisons? Do we want to be the country that cynically preaches human rights and then violates those same rights when we think nobody is looking?
Our country cannot afford that. We cannot look the other way. We cannot reward the torturers. Gina Haspel has no business running the CIA.
-John Kiriakou
“I went to prison for disclosing the CIA’s torture. Gina Haspel helped cover it up.”
Such a disclosure was espionage according to the law. How you feel about it is a different story
Allan says: “Such a disclosure was espionage according to the law.”
Allan has trouble with complexity; he sees everything in the most simple of terms.
“John Kiriakou on the CIA and the Espionage Act”
“For this week’s episode of ‘Useful Idiots,’ former CIA agent and whistleblower discusses the Espionage Act and why he left the Democratic party.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/matt-taibbi-podcast-john-kiriakou-cia-espionage-act-906981/
‘…Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper talk with guest John Kiriakou on his experience in the CIA and being charged with breaking the Espionage Act for speaking out about the torture program in 2012.
‘Kiriakou also gives his opinion on the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower. He notes that as a former CIA analyst, he didn’t find that the whistleblower’s report was written in the CIA’s writing style. “I think the whole process was hijacked by the CIA’s leadership and the CIA’s attorneys.” His own status as a whistleblower has influenced his decision to leave the Democratic party. He says, “It took my lawyers a year to get CNN and MSNBC to stop calling me CIA-leaker John Kiriakou and to start calling me CIA-whistleblower.”’
You are an idiot. I made it clear I wasn’t discussing the merits for him going to prison but you were too lame-brained to read and understand the replies. Here they are.
“He was not sent to prison because he “refused to torture”. He was sent to prison for espionage. You can opine any which way you want on the espionage conviction but saying what you said was inaccurate and foolish.
—
It’s not complicated. He was convicted of espionage. That is what happens or is supposed to happen to those that are convicted of espionage. He wasn’t put in jail because he refused to torture.
What might be complicated is whether or not you think he did something wrong for which he was punished but that has nothing to do with the post written by AZ”
Allan says: “Such a disclosure was espionage according to the law. How you feel about it is a different story”
No, Allan, not exactly.
“Eventually, in order to avoid a trial that could have resulted in separation from his wife and five children for up to 45 years, he opted to plead guilty to one count (not Espionage) in exchange for a 30-month sentence.”
https://whistleblower.org/bio-john-kiriakou/
“When Kiriakou came to GAP for help, we began acting as his legal counsel on whistleblower issues and started a public advocacy campaign on his case. Eventually, in order to avoid a trial that could have resulted in separation from his wife and five children for up to 45 years, he opted to plead guilty to one count (not Espionage) in exchange for a 30-month sentence.
“Kiriakou is the sole CIA agent to go to jail in connection with the U.S. torture program, despite the fact that he never tortured anyone. Rather, he blew the whistle on this horrific wrongdoing.
“Kiriakou’s Service To His Country
“Kiriakou worked at the CIA from 1990 until 2004, risking his life on several occasions. He began his career at the CIA as an analyst, and later served as a counterterrorism operations officer overseas.”
He didn’t go to prison because he ““refused to torture” which is a quote from AZ. The rest of the story has nothing to do with my comment but you are too stupid to understand what the subject matter was …went to prison because he ““refused to torture”. You can copy things but you don’t understand what the discussion is and how what you copy relates to the discussion.
But Allan knows. Because he knows everything. Just ask him.
Bug, it appears to you I know everything but that is because you aren’t very bright. I am normal you aren’t.
CIA stinks. why Kirakou went to jail, but Brennan can call for sedition, sabotage, and open insubordination among federal officials openly on twitter, and get away with it?
because CIA wanted it that way, that’s why
but Kiriakou blows whistle on torture so he goes to jail.
because CIA wanted it that way thats why.
personally, I think he’s a hero. Allan, give him a chance, read his book, it’s not bad
Gina Haspel is no friend of Trump’s. If she was, he would be in a whole other position today.
She’s let her predecessor Brennan torment Trump and lead an insurrection against him, a lawfully elected president.
She could have delivered goods on Brennan, shut him down, let Trump exercise his lawful perquisites. But she’s part of the CIA mafia.
In my book Kiriakou is a hero.
Kurtz, I have made no comments about kiriakou other than to correct AZ to make it clear he didn’t go to prison because he “refused to torture”. He went to prison because he was charged with espionage. Whether you or The Brainless Wonder think that was a good or bad decision is your business. I never expressed my opinion on that subject.
About Kiriakou, Allan says this: “He was sent to prison for espionage.”
Nope, Allan
Kiriakou was NOT sent to prison for espionage, as Allan would like people to believe. He corrects someone and then gets things wrong himself.
https://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/ex-cia-offer-pleads-guilty-to-leak-082758
Form your own citation: “In April, federal authorities indicted Kiriakou in connection with leaking to a journalist the name of an interrogator of Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. He was charged on three counts in connection with violating the Espionage Act, one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and one count attempting to defraud the CIA Publication Review Board.”
Note the word espionage. Whether they settled a case differently that was the reason the sequence of events occured that sent him to prison. Whether you or anyone else thinks the decision was wrong is a different story. You sound brainless. I don’t know how many posts you have made without recognizing the topic of discussion.
CIA has leaked stuff against Trump a hundred times the past three and a half years. Some leaks were outright lies too, disinformation. They are insubordinate failures.
and they never discipline leaks unless they don’t like them from their own CIA self serving perspective.
Do not defend the schemers at CIA
Kurtz, where did I “defend the schemers at CIA”
Is The Brainless Wonder’s idiocy catching? 🙂
Here’s what you said, Allan:
Allan says:July 10, 2020 at 4:57 PM
It’s not complicated. He was convicted of espionage. That is what happens or is supposed to happen to those that are convicted of espionage.”
_____
Allan is wrong, wrong, wrong. Kiriakou wasn’t convicted of espionage .
I’m with Kurtz: “Kiriakou is a hero…”
Whether Kiriakou was a hero or not has nothing to do with anything I said. Learn to read. Do you think he was sent to prison because he ““refused to torture” or because he leaked information. That lead to a charge of espionage according to your own article. What they decided to settle for is yet something else.
You can be with Kurtz but I think Kurtz cam into the middle of the discussion and was confused by your multiple posts. Kurtz didn’t realize that the discussion I was involved with centered around the fact that he didn’t go to prison beceause he “refused to torture”,
It appears to me that whatever character flaws politicians might have we will support them as long as we philosophicly agree with them. Morals and ethics don’t matter.
Trump said that he’s a stable genius, Ivy League school graduate (i.e. took real estate courses at. U.Penn.,), has the “best words”, and even founded a university. Of COURSE, someone like that is extremely unlikely to need a ghostwriter take an exam for him. Why the MSM would publish something negative about him is just disgraceful. So many haters and socialists (the poor kind, not the rich ones on Corporate welfare.
Be sure to buy GOYA beans, GOYA rice, GOYA products! GOYA is the best!
Hispanics for Trump 2020! Si, se puede!
“‘A slap in the face:’ Goya faces boycott over Trump praise”
BY ALEXANDRA OLSON, KATE BRUMBACK AND MATT OTT ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS
JULY 10, 2020 05:35 PM
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/article244135497.html
‘Standing beside Trump in the Rose Garden on Thursday, Goya CEO Robert Unanue declared: “We are truly blessed, at the same time, to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder.”
‘Almost immediately, #BoycottGoya, #GoyaFoods and #Goyaway began trending on social media platforms. Former Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “Hamilton” writer Lin-Manuel Miranda joined the boycott calls. The United Farm Workers posted a video on Twitter contrasting Trump’s words deriding some Latinos as criminals and rapists against images of them working hard in the fields.”
Ted Kennedy
“A lifetime of hard, and often selfish, living also took its toll on Kennedy. In 1951, as a freshman at Harvard who was more interested in football than his studies, Kennedy arranged for a friend to take his spring Spanish exam. He was caught cheating and was subsequently expelled from the school for two years, during which time he served as a military police officer in Paris at the arrangement of his father. Years later, while he was a law student at the University of Virginia, Kennedy was arrested for reckless driving after a chase with police.”
– Time, 2009
George, read Kennedy Babylon by Howie Carr.
Could Trump really sue, since he is a public figure? It should be possible to at least try to trace Shapiro’s school and residence at the time of the allegations. Heck, I know where some of my family was in any given year for at least 200 years.
While the law allows any number of deliberate lies about the dead to go unpunished, Pam Shriver’s family reputation has been tarnished. This affects her, personally. I have never understood why the living relatives are unable to sue, based on their own damages.
I was raised to believe that all of our actions reflected upon the family. If us kids acted up in a store or restaurant, we embarrassed the family, and so on. Family honor is sometimes all someone has.
These malicious tell all books reflect so badly upon the relative writing them. It was ugly seeing this play out with Meghan Markle, regardless of her flaws, and it’s ugly now.
he could sue but he probably would not win unless he could prove actual malice which would be super difficult
in the meantime he would be “stooping to conquer” a disgruntled relative with a pack of bitter tall tales to tell and thus be wasting his time and energy,
so he will not sue
Good point.
DID MARY TRUMP PULL NAME OUT OF HAT?
I don’t honestly know why Mary Trump named Mr Shapiro. But it sounds like she had some plausible reason to think Shapiro was the man in question. And even if Shapiro was the man of ‘high integrity’ that his widow describes, Shapiro was most likely in his late teens at the time. Perhaps Donald made the effort well-worth Shapiro’s effort.
In any event, the word of Shapiro’s widow is not necessarily any more credible than Mary Trump’s. What’s more, Donald Trump has made strenuous efforts to withhold his college grades so that the public has no way of judging how good of a student he was. Therefore Donald Trump himself is responsible for creating doubt about his academic history.
this is all a trifle. trump is making history not debating it.
he leaves that to the army of propagandists employed by the Democratic leadership’s national slander machine aka the mass media
and they are an echo chamber anyhow so why stop them or bother
“JFK, Monster” – By Timothy Noah
“I knew that John F. Kennedy was a compulsive, even pathological adulterer, given to taking outlandish risks after he entered the White House. I knew he treated women like whores. And I knew he had more than a few issues with his father about toughness and manliness and all that. But before I read in the newspaper that Mimi Alford’s just-released memoir, Once Upon A Secret: My Affair With President John F. Kennedy And Its Aftermath, described giving Dave Powers a blow job at JFK’s request and in his presence, I didn’t know that Kennedy had an appetite for subjecting those close to him to extreme humiliation.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Clinton pays Paula Jones $850,000”
Associated Press
Wed 13 Jan 1999 13.15 EST
“WASHINGTON (AP) – Paula Jones is awaiting the arrival of an $850,000 cheque from President Clinton, bringing an official end to the four-year saga spurred by her allegations of sexual harassment.”
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“FDR and His Women”
“… she was deeply wounded to discover that Franklin had been having an affair with her secretary, Lucy Mercer.”
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Bill Clinton as enabled by Hillary Clinton
1. Eileen Wellstone (1969) Allegation: Sexual assault
2. Anonymous female student at Yale University (1972) Allegation: Sexual assault
3. Anonymous female student at the University of Arkansas (1974) Allegation: Sexual assault
4. Anonymous female lawyer (1977) Allegation: Sexual assault
5. Juanita Broaddrick (1978) Allegation: Rape
6. Carolyn Moffet (1979) Allegation: Sexual assault
7. Elizabeth Ward (1983) Allegation: Unclear
8. Sally Perdue (1983) Allegation: Unclear
9. Paula Jones (1991) Allegation: Sexual harassment
10. Sandra Allen James (1991) Allegation: Sexual assault
11. Christy Zercher (1992) Allegation: Sexual assault
12. Kathleen Willey (1993) Allegation: Sexual assault
Larry Sinclair testified that Barack Obama smoked crack cocaine, had homosexual relations with him and implied that Obama had homosexual relations with a “Donald Young” who was murdered on Dec. 23, 2007, and was the openly gay choir director for Reverend Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ.
On another note, waiting for Turley’s opinion on the SCOTUS today. My guess is we will wait till he gets Barr’s or Trump’s talking points first.
The SCOTUS has proven itself entirely political, completely non-judicial, in violation of the Constitution and impeachable.
Tax returns and the IRS should not even exist – taxes being sufficient through property, sales and other forms of taxation.
Taxation for anything other than security and infrastructure as “…general Welfare…” is unconstitutional and must have been struck down a century ago causing the IRS to have never come into existence, and the Fourth Amendment right to privacy precludes any release of any form of private personal data.
The Supreme Court supports only the collective as it ignores the freedom of the individual. The American Founders established the People as the new Sovereign and government as the Subject of that new Sovereign. Under the Constitution, government exists solely to facilitate the maximal freedom of individuals, most certainly not to dictate a totalitarian welfare state.
You can’t grasp the scope and breadth of American constitutional freedom, while you clutch tightly the principles of communism: Central Planning, Control of the Means of Production (i.e. regulation), Redistribution of Wealth and Social Engineering.
George – I support your elimination of the IRS. I support your belief that SCOTUS has been corrupted by political nonsense.
Given the facts that Trump would cheat about anything and at anytime, the story that Trump had someone else take his tests ring true. I hope the guy got to cash the check before Trump cancelled it. Or was it paid in Rubes?
Ha! Uncle Vlad has Trumpy bear’s back!
FishWings — you are the perfect example of the Stupidity of the American People that the Democrats count on to keep voting for them. You are Exhibit A.
Anon @ 10:50 PM is changing the world one worthless pointless comment at a time. Keep it up, Anon!
Tell-all books often say more about the teller than anything else. Only talk about the weather with such people.
This may not have been flagged for fact checking because it did not matter if it was true or not.
If we have learned anything from the the Democratic feelings party, their truth does not rely on facts; especially when it involves President Trump.