Yet another Trump associate accused of sexual harassment

Lost in the rapid news about Trump’s hospitalization is a yet another political sex scandal. This one involves Kimberly Guilfoyle, one time Fox News personality and currently girlfriend for Donald Trump’s son Don Jr. and also Trump’s campaign finance chair. She seems to be a real piece of work in the way she treated a young assistant and behaved around others.

As President Donald Trump heads into the 2020 elections, he faces a daunting gender gap: according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, he trails Joe Biden by thirty percentage points among female voters. As part of his campaign, Trump has been doing all he can to showcase female stars in the Republican Party, from nominating Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court to naming Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News host and legal analyst, his campaign’s finance chair. Guilfoyle, however, may not be an ideal emissary. In November, 2018, a young woman who had been one of Guilfoyle’s assistants at Fox News sent company executives a confidential, forty-two-page draft complaint that accused Guilfoyle of repeated sexual harassment, and demanded monetary relief. The document, which resulted in a multimillion-dollar out-of-court settlement, raises serious questions about Guilfoyle’s fitness as a character witness for Trump, let alone as a top campaign official.
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How can they tell?

Calvin Coolidge, who presented a “quiet, boring, dour” image to the public, became president in 1923 when president Warren G. Harding died of heart attack. He was elected to the presidency in 1924 and practiced what might be called a minimalist style of governing and personal behavior. He would sleep for about 11 hours a night and also manage to get in a nap during the day lasting from two to four hours. He would speak as little as possible, advising his successor Herbert Hoover that he “could rid himself of long-winded visitors by simply sitting still and in silence until the visitor stopped talking.”
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Trump just doesn’t care about others

Trump left Walter Reed Hospital yesterday despite all the conflicting reports about how seriously he has been affected by the virus. He clearly wants to send a message to his supporters that he is well again because in MAGA world, being ill is a sign of weakness. Hell, even taking precautions to avoid getting sick is a sign of weakness. While he wore a mask when he left the hospital, his gesture of taking it off just before he entered the residence was a gesture of bravado he had clearly planned in advance.


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Katie Porter exposes price gouging by pharmaceutical companies

The congresswoman from California is so effective because she does her homework, showing that what one significant factor driving price increases of drugs is that pharmaceutical CEOs are compensated according to the profits the company makes. She exposes one CEO who tripled the price of the drug his company produced and reaped a fat bonus.

You want media attention? Say that you are an undecided voter

As the election draws nearer, reporters are fanning out trying to root out that very rare species, the undecided voter. I find it hard to imagine how anyone can be an undecided voter at this point. Elections with an incumbent running are usually a referendum on that person’s performance and Trump has been such an intensely divisive and polarizing figure that this time it will be even more so. I find it hard to imagine that any sentient being could not have formed an opinion of whether to vote for him or not. But yet there are people claiming to be so and the media is drawn to them as flies to honey.
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The shambolic White House strategy over Trump’s illness

It is standard practice in politics to put the best face on anything concerning your candidate so one should not be surprised that Trump’s doctors are giving upbeat reports on his health. But what I don’t understand in why they are giving such contradictory messages.

President Donald Trump could be discharged “as early as tomorrow” from the hospital as he battles the coronavirus, his medical team said on Sunday, while acknowledging Trump experienced concerning drops in his oxygen saturation levels both Friday and Saturday.

The timing on a potential release from Walter Reed medical center, where Trump has been since Friday, was a change from the more cautious assessment the president’s physician, Sean Conley, gave on Saturday, when he declined to “put a hard date” on a possible discharge date.

During a briefing on Trump’s health Sunday morning, Conley also confirmed the president had received supplemental oxygen while at the White House on Friday morning — a step frequently taken in more serious coronavirus cases. Conley a day earlier had avoided acknowledging Trump’s need for supplemental oxygen before arriving at Walter Reed.

Separately, Conley also revealed the president had been given dexamethasone, a decades-old steroid. The announcement concerned medical experts because the drug is typically recommended only for patients with severe or critical cases of Covid-19.

U.K. scientists reported in June that dexamethasone, which quiets the immune system, reduced the risk of death for patients who required supplemental oxygen or ventilator assistance. While the drug can aid those severely ill patients, whose symptoms are often the result of an immune system in overdrive, it can also harm those who are not as sick by hampering the body’s ability to fight off the virus.

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The forcing out of ‘family member’ Brad Parscale didn’t take long

I wrote earlier that it was only a matter of time before the Trump campaign ditched former campaign manager Brad Parscale after his arrest and hospitalization and just two days later came news that he has left the campaign, probably forced out. The campaign initially issued messages of support and said that they considered Parscale a ‘member of the family’ and it seems like that they are right, because just like other members of the Trump family, Parscale is accused of being a grifter.
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