Stormy Daniels Threatened With ‘Physical Harm’ to Stay Silent About Trump: Lawyer

(COMMONDREAMS) — During an appearance on MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe” Friday morning, Michael Avenatti—the lawyer of porn star Stormy Daniels—claimed that his client has been physically threatened to remain silent about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump. “Yes,” Avenatti responded when asked by MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski if Stormy Daniels has been threatened with “physical harm.” “I think it will become apparent […]

Hillary Says "Creep" Trump Made Her "Skin Crawl"

With two weeks left until "What Happened,” Hillary Clinton’s post-campaign memoir, is slated to hit the shelves, excerpts from the book are starting to leak. And, in order to build the pre-launch buzz, the first chapters to emerge focus not on the mistakes Clinton made during the campaign, but target the man who some believe stole her presidency with the help of the Russian government.  

Audio of Clinton reading from “What Happened” was leaked to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe." Here, Clinton describes how her “skin crawled” during a moment during the second debate with President Donald Trump when the "creepy" Republican nominee loomed behind her while she spoke – a moment that was roundly mocked by “Saturday Night Live.”

Clinton noted the timing of the debate, which took place two days after Trump’s “Grab her by the p***y comment emerged, in a transparent effort to make Trump"s supposedly "aggressive" behavior look shadier than it was. 

“In audio clips of Clinton reading from the book, "What Happened," which were first obtained by MSNBC"s "Morning Joe," Clinton recounted her thoughts as she toyed with the idea of telling her Republican rival to "back up, you creep" as he stood behind her during the second presidential debate.

"My skin crawled," Clinton said. "It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching "well, what would you do?""

Just two days prior, Clinton said, ‘the world heard [Trump] brag about groping women.’”

Clinton briefly contemplated telling Trump to "back up," decided against it – a decision she now regrets. In hindsight, it would’ve been “great TV.” Instead, she says she gripped the microphone "extra hard."

“Clinton said during the debate she decided against telling Trump, "back up, you creep, get away from me," and in order to keep her composure, she gripped the microphone "extra hard." But, in hindsight, Clinton wondered if she should have taken the time to tell Trump off for following her.

"It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have over-learned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my finger nails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world," she said.”

"What Happened" has been marketed as a mea culpa – a chance for Clinton to talk about some of the mistakes she made during the campaign. With the Clinton campaign a disaster on many levels, there should be plenty of material to fill 200 pages, allowing Clinton to avoid exploring the real, underlying issues. Alas, that won"t happen: Clinton has already told NBC that the book won’t be a “comprehensive” account of the campaign.

“Clinton"s memoir is slated to be a postmortem on mistakes she made along the campaign trail and the “devastating” and unexpected loss to President Donald Trump, according to a press release.

"In this book, I write about moments from the campaign that I wish I could go back and do over. If the Russians could hack my subconscious, they’d find a long list," Clinton said in one part of the book.”

We have no special insight into the exact nature of these confessed “mistakes” that will appear in the book. However, given Clinton’s penchant for minimizing blame since the election, it will likely be filled with specious insights like “we should’ve hit more campaign stops in Pennsylvania.” Of course, ultimately none of that mattered and Clinton lost the election after the electorate ultimately decided that she was untrustworthy and a continuation of a failing status quo. Furthermore, a mea culpa that doesn’t involve some honest introspection about how her embrace of the status-quo, her militant hawkishness on Libya and other US conflicts and her rejection of populist values ultimately doomed her campaign, would not only be meaningless but could further harm the Democratic cause into the midterm elections.

Then again, who knows? Perhaps the twilight of Clinton"s political career has engendered within her a newfound appreciation for candor, and there may be surprises when the book is released on Sept. 12. In the meantime, brace for more hype-generating "leaks."

We have three words after reading all this from Hillary... But Bill didn"t?

MSNBC Anchor: "Our Job" Is To "Control Exactly What People Think"

During a lively discussion centered on fears that President Trump is "trying to undermine the media," MSNBC"s Mika Brzezinski let slip the awesome unspoken truth that the media"s "job" is to "actually control exactly what people think."

SCARBOROUGH: "Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, "Yeah you guys are going crazy. He"s doing -- what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do.""

BRZEZINSKI: "Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job."

As grabien points out, the comment failed to raise any eyebrows from her co-panelists. Instead, her co-host, Joe Scarborough, said that Trump"s media antagonism puts him on par with Mussolini and Lenin...

BRZEZINSKI: ‘OUR JOB’ IS TO CONTROL ‘EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE THINK’

Controlling “exactly what people think” is the job of the media, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski boldly declared Wednesday morning.

While discussing President Trump’s entreaties to the American people to remain skeptical of the press, Bzezinski worried that if the economy turns south, Americans may end up trusting him over the media.

“And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think,” Brzezinski said. “And that, that is our job.”

SCARBOROUGH: “Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, ‘Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing — what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do."”

BRZEZINSKI: “Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.”

The comment failed to raise any eyebrows from her co-panelists. Instead, her co-host, Joe Scarborough, said that Trump’s media antagonism puts him on par with Mussolini and Lenin.

SCARBOROUGH: “It’s the — it’s the ground noise that he is throwing out there also, whether he is questioning, Mark, the legitimacy of federal judges to do what they have done since Marbury v. Madison. It’s when he says the media is the, quote –“

BRZEZINSKI: “Enemy.”

SCARBOROUGH: “– ‘enemy of the people’, where he sounds like Mussolini or Lenin which obviously causes concern that phrase right there makes him sound more like a dictator in training, when he sends Stephen Miller out and says, basically the president has absolute power, he shall not be questioned.”

Scarborough also accused Trump’s base of having a “blind spot” on the issue of illegal immigration.

“We have an economy, let’s face it, we have an economy that is built on illegal immigration,” Scarborough said. “We have an economy that is built on that. That is why I say why don’t you just legalize it?”

news.grabien.com

MSNBC Just Admitted: “Our Job” Is To “Control Exactly What People Think”

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski just erased any lingering doubts the corporate press serves almost wholly to vomit propaganda in order to control public perception, in a rather stupefying statement during an exchange with Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough about President Trump possibly “trying to undermine the media.”

“Exactly. That is exactly what I hear,” Scarborough stated. “What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, ‘Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing — what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do.’”

“Well, I think that the dangerous, you know,” Brzezinski replied, “edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.”

Pause and consider what Brzezinski actually said — whether or not the latter sentence constituted a Freudian slip.

A corporate media presstitute — whose game of career musical chairs saw her leaving mainstream, right-wing Fox News for mainstream, left-wing MSNBC — just told the American public it’s the media’s job to “control exactly what people think.”

That statement comprises the most blatant — if perhaps tacit — evidence pro-U.S. government propaganda measures passed with the 2017 NDAA have already begun.

Mass media has for decades entrenched itself surreptitiously on the side of the ruling political establishment, using the tool of feigned neutrality to manipulate the public into thinking its reports aren’t thoroughly infused with whatever the current agenda might be.

Apparently Brzezinski and her corporate press ilk finally feel the same looming threat of censorship burdening alternative and independent outlets, which have experienced as much throughout the last election cycle. What they conveniently forget, however, is Trump salivating over media control differs negligibly from calls by the same mainstream outlets during that election season not to give credence to information revealed by Wikileaks — nor to disseminate the (accurate) reports based on those documents proffered by alternative media.

Indeed, this dissonant, hypocritical indignation over Trump’s unmistakable effort to tailor information to suit his agenda, however justified the observation is, handily demarcates a battle between the old guard of corporate media turned government mouthpiece and the new guard of an authoritarian administration testing limits of information control.

Two arms of the same arrogant censor.

But censorship of the free press has been a grave concern of independent media for months, as corporate outlets scampered to deem any reporting on multiple scandals involving the DNC and candidate Hillary Clinton ‘fake news’ — or even Russian propaganda — no matter the proven validity of the information.

That soft censorship might have suited the interests of the previous political establishment’s favored narrative — and provided a comfortable impunity for mainstream press to sanctimoniously skewer independent reporting — but the lack of foresight the oppression would eventually come full circle to apply across the board is laughable.

Perhaps MSNBC and other behemoth organizations underestimated the extreme executive powers former President Obama bequeathed to Trump — as well as Trump’s leeway in implementing more.

MSNBC’s offense at the manipulation of facts and fictions rings hollow when it and other mainstream outlets evince an established pattern of the same. That’s at least fairly close to — if not exactly — the pot calling the kettle black.

However, pointing out astonishing hypocrisy in demands for soft and hard censorship could these days be a new sport, the examples happen with such frequency. Instead, both sides — the corporate press and the political establishment, including Trump — have ramped up the measures necessary to guarantee freedom of the press will decline in coming years without hypervigilance.

And hypervigilance is an absolute necessity, now that there is no room to deny the sordid and unseemly marriage of censorship and propaganda — facilitating control of the public mind — championed openly by corporate America’s loyal lapdogs: media and government.

MSNBC Anchor: ‘Our Job’ Is To ‘Control Exactly What People Think’

(ZHE) During a lively discussion centered on fears that President Trump is “trying to undermine the media,” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski let slip the awesome unspoken truth that the media’s “job” is to “actually control exactly what people think.”

SCARBOROUGH: “Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, ‘Yeah you guys are going crazy. He’s doing — what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do."”

BRZEZINSKI: “Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.”

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As grabien points out, the comment failed to raise any eyebrows from her co-panelists. Instead, her co-host, Joe Scarborough, said that Trump’s media antagonism puts him on par with Mussolini and Lenin…

By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo