Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Sunday Thoughts:

We've all seen at least some of Melania Trump's porn pix. They pop up everywhere on the internet. If Trump fans had their way, that skanky full-frontal photo of oiled up pouting Melania holding her hand over her crotch would be displayed at every bus stop in America.

Given the reports of Donnie and Melania's true relationship, it's safe to say that, lately, some of us have seen Melania naked more that Donnie Head Case has, at least in the aforementioned photos. Of course, maybe he just travels around with one of those Japanese-manufactured sex robots made to pass for Official Wife #3. It wouldn't surprise me. Maybe the robot will actually hold Donnie's little hand as they walk off Air Force One. Hey, someone has to do the job, right? Anyway, who knows? I don't really care. All I care about is the hypocrisy. The evangelista crowd loves Melania almost as much as they love their nutjob prez. They are as proud of her as Borat is of his sister who was voted the "5th Best Prostitute In Kazakhstan" and has the trophy to prove it. When Mr. Head Case took office, I ran into two Republicans in Pennsylvania who not only claim to be fervent Christians but raved about her nudie shots while professing their lust. One added, of course, that she was "a lot better than that ape that Obama's married to." Yep. Racism is Christian too; nothing at all new there! Like the mega popular Christian hymn sez- "Onward Christian soldiers marching off to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before!"

Oh, but back to that hypocrisy! Christians profess to hate porn and think it's a danger to the world. Bullshit. They love porn. They obsess about everybody's sex lives 24 hours a day. They try to legislate sex. They even try to legislate gender. They think about "it" all the time, right down to making up fantasies about community pedophile centers in the basements of pizza shops. I can only conclude that Trump's evangelical fans love them some porn, bigly bigly! For them, it's Love Jesus-Love Trump-Love Porn. Lots of porn. They vicariously live through Donnie Head Case because he bangs porn stars like they wish they could. It's all tied in with that Jesus hung out with prostitutes thing. It's tied so tight that Donnie Head Case is their new Jesus. They can barely separate the two anymore. It's all about who they are.

Citizen Mike-- A Child Molester... Republican State Senator Was Arrested Yesterday

UPDATE: State Senator Citizen Mike (R-PA) resigned today.

Lebanon, Pennsylvania sits in the Lebanon Valley and is the county seat of Lebanon County. It's a red hellhole and part of Pennsylvania Dutch country. In the 2016 primaries, Trump scored more votes (13,490) than Hillary (4,529) and Bernie (4,482) combined. In the general, Lebanon County was landslide country for Trump: 65.9% to 30.3%. Two years later, the Lebanese were as stupid and bigoted as they were in 2016 and all in for Trumpism. Neo-fascist candidate for senator, Lou Barletta, beat incumbent Bob Casey there-- 60.7% to 37.4%-- and Scott Wagner, who barely won 40% statewide, beat Gov. Tom Wolf 57.2% to 41.1%. Entirely within the 9th congressional district, Lebanon was all in for Republican Dan Meuser with an R+28 performance. Since 1888, the only time is backed a Democrats was in 1936 (FDR). Lebanon County was one of only four counties in Pennsylvania to vote for Barry Goldwater in 1964. There are 44,228 registered Republicans (53.68%) and 27,646 registered Democrats (33.55%). Lebanon County is 94.46% white. You get the picture, right?

Last year, state Senator Mike Folmer was reelected in district 48 against Democrat Lois Herr 60,357 (62.9%) to 35,545 (37.1%). The district includes all of Lebanon County and small parts of Dauphin and York counties. Since the district's creation in the 1960s, it has only elected Republicans. Folmer was arrested on sexual abuse and child pornography charges yesterday. "We are shocked to learn tonight of the allegations made against Sen. Folmer," Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman said in a joint statement. "We will fully cooperate with law enforcement regarding this deeply disturbing matter. Given the severity of these charges, Senator Folmer is immediately being removed as Chair of the Senate State Government Committee. Further action in response to these charges will be taken up by the Senate Leadership in the coming days."

So, aside from being a garden variety, family values Republican, who is Folmer? Well... born and raised in Lebanon, he went away for college and graduated from Grace College & Seminary, an evangelical Christian "college" in Winona Lake, Indiana. He started in politics as a Democrat but soon saw the light and joined the GOP. Last year he opposed a bill to lift a legal block preventing victims of child abuse from suing their abusers or the churches they were part of. He's also an anti-Choice fanatic and gets an "A" rating from the NRA.

His excuse for sending and receiving child porn? He says he's been dealing with some personal problems/issues. He's been freed on $25,000 bail.

Are Republican House Candidates Allowed To Be Gay For Pay? Let's watch This One Play Out In CA-26

Last year CA-26-- a Southern California congressional district that includes Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village at the upper end of the San Fernando Valley plus most of Ventura County, including a bit of Simi Valley, plus Moorpark, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Oxnard and Fillmore-- gave Hillary a landslide victory over Trumpanzee: 57.9% to 36.0%. Obama had beaten McCain there, 56-41% and beaten Romney 54-44%. The PVI went from D+4 in 2015 to D+7 after the election. The district has a lousy congresswoman, pointless New Dem careerist Julia Brownley. ProgressivePunch rates her crappy voting record a very solid "F." Despite being an utter waste of a blue seat, she's expected to easily win reelection. As of the September 30 reporting deadline she already had $2,447,043 in her warchest. There are 4 Republicans wasting their time running against her-- Antonio Sabato Jr., Shane Skelton, Jeffrey Burum and Rafael Dagnesses, with Sabato, a Trumpist former porn star, underwear model and low-grade actor leading the pack.

Conservatives feel uncomfortable with Sabato, who more a fascist than an actual conservative and... well, he used to have sex with men on film for money-- and conservatives feel funny about that. Yesterday, the L.A. Times gave Sabato his moment of glory with a story by Seema Mehta. "Antonio Sabato Jr.," she wrote, "is best known as a soap opera star and Calvin Klein underwear model. But parts of his acting career are raising eyebrows among some conservatives as the Republican and early supporter of President Trump runs for Congress in California." Local Republicans "are saying movie roles in which Sabato simulated sex with a man and appeared nude disqualify him from representing the GOP." Republicans prefer gay sex in the closet, not on the silver screen. Sabato was born in Rome but his family moved to the U.S. when he was 13. He likes to call himself an immigrant who supports the wall and he's proud of his ugly bigotry, having insisted that Obama was a Muslim. To make upper his gay pornography he's dated loads of women and knocked up as many as possible and has children with several unmarried women. He's generally considered a filthy pig by anyone who knows him.

Ret. Air Force Maj. Jeffrey Burum, another Republican in the race, deemed the movies “pornography” and called on Sabato to end his campaign.

“His behavior is inconsistent with anything I would want from a congressional leader. It’s also inconsistent with a party which has always favored traditional family values, which do not include porn,” Burum said.

Sabato and his campaign disputed the description of his work as pornographic.

Charles Moran, a Sabato advisor and the former president of California Log Cabin Republicans, said that while Ventura County may be more conservative than neighboring Los Angeles County, many people in the entertainment industry live there and are unlikely to care about Sabato’s previous roles.

“They know what it takes to be a successful actor in the industry, and anybody trying to make Antonio Sabato Jr.’s career and job choices salacious does so without really knowing the value of the craft,” he said, predicting the controversy would have no impact on the race. “For a long time, gays have played straight, straights have played gay. A good actor can do this, and many do. Antonio Sabato Jr. is no different.”

Sabato noted the movies Testosterone and Deadly Skies, which were both filmed more than 10 years ago, are part of a three-decade-long acting career.

“I’ve done many movies. I’ve done things I’m proud of and things I’m not so proud of, that’s just the way any actor works,” he said. “They don’t know what kind of congressman I’ll be, the work ethic I have.”

Sabato, 45, is best known for roles on General Hospital and Melrose Place in the 1990s, and The Bold and the Beautiful from 2005 to 2006. He has appeared in many other scripted television shows and movies, music videos and reality programs.

As first reported on the Ventura County website Citizens Journal, Sabato’s critics are protesting his roles in two films where he plays a gay man.

In 2003’s Testosterone, Sabato plays an Argentine man who mysteriously deserts his writer boyfriend. He appears fully nude in the film.



Three years later, Sabato played an Air Force officer who was dismissed under the military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in Deadly Skies. The film, about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, contains a scene where Sabato appears partly nude and simulates having sex with another man.

Unlike films that would traditionally be considered pornography, the movies starred mainstream Hollywood actors, including Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Moriarty, David Sutcliffe, Rae Dawn Chong and Sonia Braga, and don’t comprise solely sexual content. Testosterone premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was reviewed by the New York Times, which described it as “a shaky comic noir larded with soft-core sex.”

...Sabato is a vocal supporter of Trump and spoke on his behalf at the Republican National Convention in 2016, efforts that he said have hampered his acting career.

“I was blacklisted from Hollywood,” Sabato said, adding he had no regret for supporting Trump and has been to the White House since the election.

“I’m proud of our president. Look at everything he has been able to do in such a short amount of time,” he said.

Critics also note that Sabato posed for Playgirl magazine. He appeared on the cover and inside a 1993 issue devoted to “Soap Studs.” He did not appear nude and was covered with strategically placed bubbles.

So polite! And prudish! Who do we think we're fooling here? Even if Sabato's heart belongs to Trump now, it's well known that he used to put out for modeling jobs and TV roles and did dozens of gay porn movies and photo shoots. He would be a perfect Republican candidate. I hope he wins the GOP primary and runs against Brownley. She deserves him!

Señor Trumpanzee Has Been Looking For An Excuse To Demote Or Fire Bannon-- Here Are A Couple On A Silver Platter

This post was written just before Trump fired Bannon today

Chris Cuomo says CNN contacted all 52 Republican senators-- every single one of them, even Mike Rounds, Thad Cochran and James Lankford who no one ever calls for a national interview-- to come on the air and defend their president's Charlottesville remarks. Not one accepted the invitation. Meanwhile Bannon accidentally did an interview with the liberal American Prospect by calling an outspoken Trump foe, Robert Kuttner, out of thin air-- for a chit-chat? I don't think so.

Background: the new CBS poll shows that "nearly two-thirds of Americans consider the attack that led to loss of life in Charlottesville an act of 'domestic terrorism,' a view that spans partisan lines. But President Trump's response to Charlottesville finds more division. He gets majority disapproval overall for his response to the events, while most Republicans approve. Republicans interviewed following Tuesday's press conference also feel Mr. Trump is assigning blame accurately in the matter, while Democrats and Independents, and the country overall, disagree... Disapproval of the president's handling of events rose following the press conference. Both partisan groups showed at least slight ticks up in disapproval, with Republicans becoming a bit more disapproving and Democrats even more so... Overall, Americans are more apt to say Mr. Trump's policies have encouraged racial division rather than racial unity."

Now back to Bannon's interview with Kuttner, which has been driving Regime insiders into a frenzy since it surfaced Wednesday night. By way of introduction, Kuttner wrote that we "might think from recent press accounts that Steve Bannon is on the ropes and therefore behaving prudently. In the aftermath of events in Charlottesville, he is widely blamed for his boss’s continuing indulgence of white supremacists. Allies of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster hold Bannon responsible for a campaign by Breitbart News, which Bannon once led, to vilify the security chief. Trump’s defense of Bannon, at his Tuesday press conference, was tepid. But Bannon was in high spirits when he phoned me Tuesday afternoon to discuss the politics of taking a harder line with China, and minced no words describing his efforts to neutralize his rivals at the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury. 'They’re wetting themselves,' he said, proceeding to detail how he would oust some of his opponents at State and Defense." Bannon appears to be calling all the shots at the White House and treating Trump like the puppet Saturday Night Live used it explain their relationship.

“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.”

But can Bannon really win that fight internally?

“That’s a fight I fight every day here,” he said. “We’re still fighting. There’s Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying.”

“We gotta do this. The president’s default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don’t get me wrong. It’s like, every day.”

Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration while building an outside coalition of trade hawks that includes left as well as right. Hence the phone call to me.

...I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump’s reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of using Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump’s base.

He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: “Ethno-nationalism-- it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”

“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.

From his lips to Trump’s ear.

“The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

I had never before spoken with Bannon. I came away from the conversation with a sense both of his savvy and his recklessness. The waters around him are rising, but he is going about his business of infighting, and attempting to cultivate improbable outside allies, to promote his China strategy. His enemies will do what they do.

Either the reports of the threats to Bannon’s job are grossly exaggerated and leaked by his rivals, or he has decided not to change his routine and to go down fighting. Given Trump’s impulsivity, neither Bannon nor Trump really has any idea from day to day whether Bannon is staying or going. He has survived earlier threats. So what the hell, damn the torpedoes.

The conversation ended with Bannon inviting me to the White House after Labor Day to continue the discussion of China and trade. We’ll see if he’s still there.

Yes, we will. When the clownish Mooch attempted to entertain Señor Trumpanzee by making reference to Bannon sucking his own cock, he wasn't just pulling a reference out of thin air. He was probably aware by then about the Coconut Grove party house-- not far from the infamous park where Marco Rubio used to work as a male prostitute-- that Bannon occupied. Bannon and his third ex-wife lived at 1794 Opechee Drive in Miami, a notorious meth and porn den. "The Miami-Dade Police Department’s public corruption unit launched an investigation into whether Bannon had fraudulently registered to vote in that county. Bannon had signed the lease, listed himself as an occupant, and paid the rent every month," wrote Jason Brad Berry yesterday. "One of Bannon’s colleagues, Arlene Delgado, testified that she had met with Bannon at the house on Opechee Drive, which he described as 'my house,' where she saw 'boxes, papers, and effects' that indicated he lived there. They met, according to Delgado, because Bannon had moved to Florida and wanted to increase the presence of the far-right Breitbart News, of which he was executive chair."

[In a 2017 report] the Washington Post focused primarily on the bizarre fact that Bannon listed the Opechee Drive house as his place of residence, despite living in California. The article lightly touched on the state of disrepair in which Bannon left the house-- including a bathtub apparently destroyed by acid.

But the truth turns out to have been much worse than that.

When Curtis first saw the house, the real estate agent, Beatriz Portela, told him the previous tenants “were not very upstanding people” and had “severely damaged” the property.

They had “put padlocks on all the doors, installed video cameras, and had ruined the bathtub, kitchen counter, and floor.”

Worse, though, was that it had been a “party house,” she said, known for frequent drug use.

Carlos Herrera, who owned the house with with his wife, Andreina Morales, painted a picture of what initially seemed to be a normal tenancy but soon evolved into an almost daily parade of debauchery and drug use, including run-ins with the police.

“The conclusion is she was probably cooking meth in here,” Herrera said of Bannon’s ex-wife. That would have explained the damage done to the bathtub and kitchen sink.

Curtis heard the same stories of porn, drugs, and debauchery over and over again.

“Each person gave accounts that the house was used to film pornography, had a constant flow of men, women-- and even children-- at the house and that blatant drug use was occurring at all hours of the night and day,” Curtis said.

At least five people told him tales of drug use and porn at the house.

Felix, a handyman who frequently worked on the property, told Curtis he had personally “witnessed women and men being filmed in the act.” He described the buckets of chemicals and bags of trash and rags he had to remove. He spent hours scrubbing the master bathtub, “which appeared melted by some form of acid.” Felix suspected the bathtub had been used for “making drugs.”

Curtis heard similar stories from the pest control service man.

“In fact,” Curtis said, “he did so in an almost gleeful and boastful manner.”

The pest control worker described witnessing drug use each time he came to the house, “even at early day hours.” He told Curtis it would blow his mind to know what “what went on in the house.”

An unnamed male tenant, he said, who was “a heavy set man,” offered him “girls for sex and/or drugs in lieu of payment,” but he never accepted because he could lose his job.

When the oven range needed repair, the repairman refused to come to the house. Despite the service warranty, Curtis said, he was told no one would come “if the same people were living in the house because ‘that house is evil and the people are evil.’”

The company ultimately agreed to send someone after being assured the prior tenants were gone.

When Curtis opened the gate, the repairman said with seeming relief, “You aren’t him.”

He proceeded to work on the range and also share his own horror stories about the previous tenants.

He told Curtis that on several occasions, when he would arrive to service the house, “the tenants would scream at him to leave and threatened him with violence.” At other times, when he was allowed into the house to perform work, he observed topless and naked men and women and the constant presence of drugs, which they would sometimes offer to him.

He told Curtis it was “the worst experience of his life” and that he “did not want anything to do with those ‘evil people.’”

“You have no idea what kind of evil stuff went on in the house,” he said.

One day, Curtis said, a woman came to the house asking for “Steve or [his ex-wife].” She appeared distraught when he told her they no longer lived there. She stood outside the gate for several minutes in a daze.

“I assumed she was probably a regular visitor to the house looking for drugs from the previous tenants,” Curtis said, “but I didn’t realize just how bad the drug use in the house had been at the time. I firmly told her to leave and to not come back.”

Meanwhile, according to the realtor, the neighbors had formed a committee “in an effort to get the owners to evict” the tenants before they ultimately left.

In September 2016, upon returning from a filming in the South Pacific, Curtis came home to a pile of mail addressed to Steve Bannon and his ex-wife. Curtis would write “return to sender” on the mail, but “the flow of bills, notices from the city of Miami, and letters from the Bank of Ireland started piling up.”

That’s when the landlord finally told Curtis about the identity of the former tenants.

“He told me that [Bannon] was indeed the previous tenant who caused such drama,” Curtis said. And now that Bannon had joined Trump’s presidential campaign, everyone was looking into Bannon and his history.

“He told me the FBI had contacted them, as well as several reporters and journalists,” Curtis said, “and that I should expect to be contacted as well.”

“It was an unusual situation, to say the least,” he added.

But it was more than unusual. It was also a health hazard.

Shortly after Curtis moved into the house, he started to experience a variety of symptoms: fatigue, inability to sleep, eye and skin irritation, chronic chest pain, and dizziness.

The symptoms would subside when he was away from the house for weeks at a time and they would resume when he returned.

In March, Herrera finally admitted to Curtis that the prior tenants had manufactured meth there. That’s when Curtis went to stay in a hotel. Again, his symptoms subsided.

He also purchased kits to test for methamphetamine in the house. At first, he focused on the kitchen, master bathroom, and guest room. The tests showed a high level of contamination, so Curtis ordered six more tests and had them shipped overnight.

The contamination was through the roof. So Curtis hired a company to test the house at well. The test confirmed “levels of meth and very high levels of cocaine.”

In May, Curtis moved out of the house.

He still suffers from health problems related to living in the house once occupied by Steve Bannon.

This morning Digby mentioned that "Steve Bannon is reportedly going back to Breitbart. That is a mistake and I'm surprised he's doing it. He has an agenda and part of it is to sow dissension on the left over "identity politics" vs economic populism and hostility toward the "deep state," which is a real fault line, if less of a chasm than some people want to believe. He could possibly make progress on that if he started a new project and re-branded himself as an isolationist, economic populist but Breitbart's "alt-right" identity is toxic to everyone on the left. From what I'm seeing so far, Breitbart is planning to "go to war" against the administration saying that it's full of "Democrats, globalists and Generals." (You can be sure that they will also continue to be a hub for the "alt-right's" connection to the Nazis and Neo-confederates too.)

"From the commentary I heard this morning, much of the punditocrisy apparently agrees with Bannon that all that confederate statue stuff has no salience among Trump voters since they inexplicably continue to contend that those nice salt-o-the-earth All American boys and girls reject white supremacy and just want some good union work in a factory somewhere and are looking to Donald Trump to finally deliver now that he got rid of that awful racist. The pundits are deluded."

Melania Trump Was An "Illegal Alien" Stealing American Jobs

Leave it to Mr. Trumpanzee and his evangelical allies to redefine "classy"

No legitimate news organizations have published any of the steamy testimonials from Melania Knauss' clients from when she was making her living as a call girl before she met the Trumpanzee at the Kit Kat Club and hooked the supposed billionaire. But, on the heels of the nude "modeling" photos (softcore porn) that Rupert Murdock's New York Post has been publishing, that's probably coming. But this week the focus on Melania went in a somewhat different direction. Trumpanzee fans are unlikely to have much of a beef with the racy lesbian picture of their idea of a next First Lady but... they just might think twice when they realize Melania was an "illegal alien" stealing America porn jobs, sometimes without requisite permits.

DC gossip sheet, Politico, broke the story yesterday, pointing out that the plagiarizing Melania also lied about her biography, the nonsense about her graduating from a college and, potentially more damaging to the Trumpanzee campaign, her immigration status. She and The Donald have always claimed that she came to America legally. Politico reports that "her own statements suggest she first came to the country on a short-term visa that would not have authorized her to work as a model. Trump has also said she came to New York in 1996, but the nude photo shoot places her in the United States in 1995, as does a biography published in February by Slovenian journalists. The inconsistencies come on top of reports by CBS News and GQ Magazine that [Melania] Trump falsely claimed to have obtained a college degree in Slovenia but could be more politically damaging because her husband has made opposition to illegal immigration the foundation of his presidential run."

Visa fraud would call into question a green card application and subsequent citizenship application, said immigration lawyers-- thus raising questions about Melania Trump’s legal status, even today, despite her marriage to a U.S. citizen.

Violations of U.S. visa law are hardly unusual, particularly in the modeling industry. It was a common practice in the 1990s in New York for less scrupulous agencies to bring in foreign models to work illegally on temporary business and tourist visas, according to Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance, a group that advocates improved labor standards for fashion models.

...Zampolli said the models he worked with would have entered the country on either an H-1B or an O-1, a visa for foreigners who possess “extraordinary ability.” O-1 visas are frequently given to star scientists, athletes and entertainers, but because Melania Knauss (her maiden name) was an obscure model who mostly posed for advertisements and catalogs in the mid-’90s, it is highly unlikely she qualified for an O-1, which comes with an initial stay period of up to three years, said immigration attorneys. An O-1 visa would also not have required her to leave the country periodically.

...Even Melania’s use of the H-1B program would stand in contrast to her husband’s position today. Trump, who has made his opposition to illegal immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, has also vowed to crack down on the use of H1-B visas as president. In March, he said he would “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”

Like the Trumpanzee himself, the hardcore fans of his presidential run don't read to read much, but if they hear about the inconsistencies in Melania's immigration stories, they could well react very negatively. And, as the New York Times has been documenting-- watch this video below-- these Trumpists seem only marginally removed from mob mentality and ugly primitive savagery normal Americans find repugnant.

“Kill her.”

“Trump that bitch!”

“Build a wall-- kill them all.”

New York Times reporters have spent over a year covering Donald J. Trump’s rallies, witnessing so many provocations and heated confrontations at them that the cumulative effect can be numbing: A sharp sting that quickly dulls from repetition.

But what struck us was the frequency with which some Trump supporters use coarse, vitriolic, even violent language-- in the epithets they shout and chant, the signs they carry, the T-shirts they wear-- a pattern not seen in connection with any other recent political candidate, in any party.

Trumpanzee fans tend to be poorly functioning racists with very low IQs

Not everyone attending a Trump rally behaves this way. In fact, many are polite and well mannered. But while protesters are often shouted down, crowds seldom express disapproval of the crude slogans and angry outbursts by Mr. Trump’s supporters. Indeed, these displays have become inextricably bound with the Trump show itself-- as much as the snaking entrance lines and the calls to “build a wall” along the border with Mexico.

With that in mind, we set out to record the shouts, slogans, imprecations and interactions among audience members that set Trump events apart from other political gatherings. We also obtained recordings from others in attendance, who sometimes were closer to the action.

The resulting compilation gives a sense of what we saw-- from Maine to North Carolina, from Ohio to Arizona.

Now watch... but not with small children in the room:

The Cop Who Arrested Rubio As A Gay Prostitute In 1990 Says He Had "Very White Teeth"

Illinois Republican Aaron Schock hasn't announced if he's reached a final agreement with TitanMen for his new gay porn career. I bet the million dollars they're negotiating is a lot more than sweaty little Marco Rubio was ever offered by the down-market Miami Cuban gay porn operators he got involved with when he was a teenager. Rubio has been the most obsessively homophobic of all the anti-gay Republicans running for office-- careful to never let Ted Cruz get to the right of him on homophobia-- and has obviously been over-compensating to hide his own shady past as a gay-for-pay hooker. Rubio, who had been running cocaine for his entrepreneurial brother-in-law, Orlando Cicilia, when he was just 16, was not quite 19 when he was arrested in Miami's notorious Coconut Grove gay pick-up spot, Alice C. Wainwright Park in 1990. He had flunked out of Tarkio College in Missouri and was back in Miami and in desperate need of money. With brother-in-law Cicilia arrested 3 years previously and then in prison, the family cocaine business was over and Rubio was selling his ass to older gay men, although, for some reason, he never wrote about that episode of his life in his autobiography, An American Son. He claims when he was arrested in the closed park he was only drinking beer, not looking for a john for some quick cash.

One of the guys arrested with Rubio, Angel Barrios, laughably claimed they were "trying to get pretty girls," although Coconut Grove was well-known as the totally wrong neighborhood for that. Last week, Miami's New Times interviewed Barrios in regard to Rubio's old life as a gay prostitute. (There are no current allegations that Rubio is still having sex with men, but he is notorious for selling himself to rich older males-- like Sheldon Adelson, Larry Ellison, Norman Braman, Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, Paul Singer, Joe Ricketts, Charles Schwab, Ron Weiser, and the Koch brothers-- for his political career.)

Decades after his legal run-in with Rubio, Barrios was associated with perhaps the most notorious gay porn ring in Miami history, an Edgewater house full of models with names like “Khali Kreme” and “Sincere Luv” who had sex all day in front of dozens of webcams. Couple that with the fact that the park where Rubio was arrested was a well-known gay cruising spot and lurid rumors-- with no basis in documented fact-- have blown up all this week on the internet, eagerly stoked by Donald Trump supporters casting Rubio as a closeted homosexual. Right-wing conspiracy monger Alex Jones devoted a five-minute segment to the allegations yesterday, while posts on the claims have been heavily upvoted on a Reddit page for Trump supporters.

“I have nothing against gay people, but this is just so far from the truth,” says Barrios, who laughs out loud at the idea of having had a sexual relationship with Rubio. “I have kids, and now they’re reading all this garbage online. It’s insane.”

Yet the story does add to a trend for Rubio, who has dealt with multiple news cycles about shady connections and sketchy choices back in his hometown, from a pile of traffic citations to mountains of questionable credit card debt to a brother-in-law convicted of dealing cocaine. Now Rubio can add to the mix a childhood buddy wrapped up in a years-long legal war over gay porn.

...On May 23, 1990, Rubio and Barrios were with another friend, 18-year-old Derek Preston Wilson, after dark at Alice C. Wainwright Park, a leafy Brickell public space then infamous as a late-night trouble spot. (“People went out there to smoke illegal substances, have sex, drink,” a police spokesman told the Post in its story published last Friday.) At 9:37 p.m., the three teens were booked.

A report obtained by New Times casts little light on why they were arrested, though; an officer notes only that they were “located in main... park after hours.” (The cop does note that Rubio was “calm” and “clean shaven” and that his teeth were “very white.”) Rubio’s spokesperson suggested to the Post that the teens were drinking beer in the park. (The senator’s office didn’t respond to New Times' emails seeking comment for this story.)

  ...[T]wo years after his childhood friend was sworn in as speaker of the Florida House-- accepting a ceremonial sword from his then-mentor Jeb Bush as cameras clicked away-- Barrios had his own brush with media infamy.

It was May 9, 2007, when an NBC 6 investigative TV crew swarmed a sedate, two-story brick house that Barrios’ father owned on NE 27th Street just east of Biscayne Boulevard. In a special report ominously titled The House Next Door, reporters breathlessly revealed that a website called CocoDorm.com had set up dozens of webcams inside the home.



Scores of ripped, young Hispanic and black male models had been hired at a $1,200 monthly fee, plus free room and board, to live inside, where the cameras caught their every move-- including regularly scheduled orgies. (An ad on the site revealed CocoDorm's recruiting tactics, offering to fly in young models for “30 days of nonstop fucking, sucking, licking, and more with other hot Black and Latin boys.”)

Today Barrios strongly denies he knew anything about the gay smut business. He says his property management company rented the house to Flava Works, the firm behind CocoDorm, with the understanding it was a “digital media” company. He didn’t know the truth, he says, until Channel 6’s report; the next day, Barrios recalls, a Miami Herald reporter knocked on his elderly father’s door to ask about the website.

“We are not in the gay porn business. We are not in the straight porn business. We are not in the porn business,” Barrios says. “My poor father, he had no idea what was going on in there."

Some dirty old men go for  this look

Barrios should have done a better background check on Flava Works' owner, Phillip Bleicher. As the Herald later reported, just before renting Barrios’ house, Bleicher left Chicago while prosecutors were investigating allegations that a student charity he had helped run had been bilked of $3 million that had been used for everything from liposuction procedures to flights to Brazil. (No charges were ever filed in that case; Bleicher’s last known address in Miami is now vacant.)

Barrios also should have had warnings that something was amiss at the house. Police were called there at least twice the year before Channel 6’s story aired. Once, an irate, drunken housemate began throwing rocks through windows; on another occasion, police showed up after a resident known only as “Twerk” became enraged when housemates told him he couldn’t sleep with a new arrival. Twerk then punched another man repeatedly in the face.

Shortly after the TV report, the City of Miami Code Enforcement Board hit CocoDorm and Barrios with multiple citations for illegally running an adult business in a residential area. In August 2007, the city sued Barrios and his investment group in Miami-Dade civil court.

Barrios says that he moved quickly to force the business out and that the gay porn site was gone within six months. But that wasn’t the end of his association with CocoDorm. In September 2007, Barrios sued the city in federal court-- with the porn company as a co-plaintiff.

They argued that the business was protected by the First Amendment and that CocoDorm wasn’t an adult business because the webcam footage was consumed elsewhere-- not at the Edgewater house.

Why would Barrios go to court with the gay-porn producers if he was so horrified to learn what they were up to?

...While the courts battled it out, Barrios dropped out of the property management game-- perhaps scarred by his brush with porn infamy-- and opened a chain of coin laundromats, with two in Little Havana and a new outlet in Homestead.

Rubio, who has two families and is well-known in Tallahassee and in DC for screwing women lobbyists, tried to minimize the damage to his macho reputation-- particularly after the high-heeled booties incident-- by releasing this video last month:




Rubio totally blew it last night in the New Hampshire debate. He got plowed under right before our eyes, mercilessly so, by grotesque New Jersey bully Chris Christie, who exposed him as a robotic little twerp who lacks the capacity to think on his feet. As Elias Isquith pointed out for Salon readers right after the debate, when challenged the über-ambitious empty suit and young fogey went right into self-destruction mode.

Things got started when Rubio was asked to respond to Christie’s allegation that, after experiencing the presidency of Barack Obama, who was elected as a first-term U.S. senator, it would be especially unfortunate if the Republican Party were itself to nominate Marco Rubio, a first term U.S. senator, for the White House. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Christie had said (bettering his former benefactor, George).

Rubio’s comeback was pretty good, if a little obvious in its intent: He argued that experience was overrated; if it mattered, Vice President Joe Biden would be a good candidate for commander-in-chief. He then argued that an unspoken premise of the criticism-- that Obama has failed in part due to his inexperience-- is faulty. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, Rubio said. The president is not a fool; he’s a menace.

Christie wasn’t having it, dismissing Rubio’s Biden straw man and recommitting to his initial attack. Rubio’s a nice guy, a smart guy, Christie said; but the simple fact is that he’s never had to make an important decision. This got a noticeable round of applause from the audience. And perhaps that’s why Rubio then proceeded to self-destruct.

What Rubio’s next five or so minutes such a disaster wasn’t really what he said-- but the fact that he had already just said it. Looking mighty flummoxed, Rubio tried to parry Christie’s second attack by pivoting once again to Obama, hoping to bring the crowd around to his side by using generous helpings of ideological red meat to help their tribal identification overwhelm their intellect. It had already failed, but he was doing it again. Worse still, his second answer was almost a verbatim repeat of his first.

Marcobot malfunction-- replace model STAT

Remember: The knock on Rubio has always been, essentially, that he’s a lightweight. He’s young, pretty good-looking, and he exudes the kind of Kennedy-esque earnest, “idealistic” machismo that seems to send a thrill up the legs of the Republican Party’s aged voter base (as well the aging ranks of the elite political press). As they once said of that cherubic whippersnapper Al Gore, Rubio is an older person’s idea of a young person. There may not be much there there, in short.

Well, it’s hard to imagine anything Rubio could have possibly done that would more immediately, and humorously, affirm the caricature. Here he was, really being challenged for the first time-- and by Christie, a world-class bully, no less-- and he was wilting. He was like an artificially intelligent robot confronted with a logical question his programming couldn’t handle. I worried for a moment that my stream of the debate had begun to skip.

Whether due to incompetence or pity, the moderators tried to move on. But like a really big, mean, and sadistic shark, Christie was all over it. He mocked Rubio for falling back on his talking points-- something all politicians do, but rarely so conspicuously-- and continued to shred the senator’s (lack of a) record, as well as tout his own hands-on experience governing New Jersey.

Rubio tried to tu quoque Christie, noting that the governor had only grudgingly returned to the Garden State during a recent snowstorm. Christie all but rolled his eyes and laughed it off while the audience booed-- at Rubio. And then, unbelievably, Rubio started to fall back into repeating the talking point (let’s not pretend Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing…) yet again. “There it is!” Christie interjected. The crowd was with him. Rubio’s emasculation was all but complete.

And, I swear to God, about 40 minutes later, he used the same line again.

GOP Closet Case Aaron Schock Offered $1,000,000 To Star In A Series On Hardcore Gay Porn Films

Last month we took a look at the gay porn company that did a movie based loosely on the life and foibles of Republican congressional closet case Aaron Schock, Cauke For President. Now another gay porn house, TitanMen, wants to make a series of gay porno films starring Aaron. They're offering him as much as a million dollars.

And Aaron needs that money as the legal bills for keeping him out of prison continue to mount. Although he has over half a million dollars left in his campaign account-- which he is allowed to use for his legal defense-- he already owes his attorneys at Jones Day more than that-- $746,985.45 to be exact. Schock, like virtually all GOP congressional closet cases, has been a homophobe and hypocrite but TitanMen is gambling that the money will open him up to their proposition.

TitanMen insists that the 34 year old Schock sign an exclusive deal with them and not make gay porn for any other companies. Their press release stressed that Schock is a "boyishly handsome and muscular 34-year-old Republican [who] became a media sensation thanks to his Instagram account, which features homoerotic images of Schock on expensive and exotic vacations, his chiseled physique on display in extreme sports, and for his dapper sense of fashion."

Aaron Schock stands 5’8″ tall and weighs in at 165 pounds of lean muscle. His impressive six-pack abs earned him a cover and in-depth interview in Men’s Health magazine, where he revealed the secret to his impressive physique: a grueling daily workout routine that includes 60-75 minutes of strength training followed by a five-mile run at 6:30 am.

“TitanMen has a history of signing iconically handsome men with both brains and brawn, and Aaron Schock fits that profile to a ‘T’,” said TitanMen Vice-President and managing partner Keith Webb. “Despite Schock’s scandal over allegedly misappropriating campaign funds, he has so much more to offer our fans. What we’re offering is a win-win situation, giving him the opportunity to break free and come out in a whole new world!”

If Schock agrees to join the TitanMen family, he will be in good company. In 2015 the newly reenergized brand signed several outstanding exclusive performers including Matthew Bosch, Dallas Steele, David Benjamin, and Eddy CeeTee, who joined Jesse Jackman, Hunter Marx, Nick Prescott, Eric Nero, and more in the ranks of iconic TitanMen. The Internet will surely be delighted with sexy new photos and video for Schock’s Instagram account.

TitanMen is a very hard core brand and the company doesn't fool around; Schock would have to work very hard for the money which would certainly include multiple x-rated scenes that would probably upset many of his former colleagues, though probably not Patrick McHenry (R-NC). A hint to TitanMen though-- instead of just offering him money, they might have more success if they offered to get his supposedly unrequited love interest, Adam Kinzinger (below), another Illinois Republican, to co-star in the series as his sweetie.

The Movie About Aaron Schock Is A Politically-Oriented X-Rated Gay Pornography Film

A few days ago, when Steve Israel, announced he would retire from Congress at the end of the year, I mentioned that my co-screenwriter and I would consider asking him if he wants to try out for the role of Steve Tel-Aviv character in our made-for-cable political sit-com. I suspect Titan Men, the gay porn producers, didn't ask Republican former-Congressman Aaron Schock to play the part of Mike Cauke, a closeted politician in the new x-rated film Cauke For President. Don't worry, the trailer up top is not x-rated. And neither is the Cauke for President campaign website. His issues-- typical rote Republican claptrap:

HARD ON EVERY ISSUE

Economic Growth: We need to grow our economy so that every American can find work, earn more and be self-sufficient. I believe that there is a millionaire within all of us just waiting to reach their god given potential.

Lower Taxes: Hard working Americans need to keep more of what they earn, not send their hard earned money to Washington to be wasted by bureaucrats.

Flat tax: If 10% is good enough for Jesus, then it should be good enough for Uncle Sam. I believe in a flat 10% tax across the board on all income, and the elimination of all deductions.

Eliminate the Debt and Balance the Budget: We need eliminate the debt and put America on a mandatory budget. Just like hard working Americans we can’t spend what we don’t have. I would eliminate deficit spending and make Congress balance the budget.

National Safety and the Military: America is under attack at home and aboard, we need to ensure the safety of the American people with whatever means necessary. We must be the world’s leader in military power with the most robust and advanced military in the world.

2nd Amendment rights: The right to bear arms is a fundamental bedrock of our constitutional liberty. I will fight to secure open carry rights for all Americans, as the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Immigration reform: As my mentor John McCain so eloquently put it… Build the dang fence! We need to take care of Americans first and foremost and ban all use of government funds to support illegals.

The back story is that Cauke grew up on the family farm in Cumming, Iowa where he was a member of FFA (for the sake of the campaign, Future Farmers of America) and "helped his father castrate hogs, so he’ll know how to cut the pork in Washington and make ’em squeal! A former college tight end on his college football team and all-around jock, Cauke loves sports, staying fit, and anything to do with balls or bats. As a young conservative, Cauke straddles the line between the new generation of compassionate conservatives and older, more reactionary politicians, but he still upholds the basic tenets of his party: smaller government, lower taxes, supporting the US military in protecting American citizens, and making the economic growth of the middle class as a first priority."

The Chicago Tribune reported that "Like Schock, Cauke is a fan of posting pictures of exotic vacations. He also has a Downton Abbey-themed office." Titan Men has been trolling Schock on Twitter.

UPDATE: Meanwhile Christie, Cruz And Trumpf Are Hinting Rubio Might Be A... Maricón

GOP operative Steve Schmidt: "They’re clearly trying to effeminize Marco Rubio. Wearing black, high-heeled booties is not exactly a statement of masculinity. And this is not groundbreaking. The sartorial choices of candidates have long been used by their opponents to say something negative about a larger personality trait, sometimes to devastating effect." And Rubio always feared his achilles heal would be that he was sleeping with lady lobbyists in Tallahassee and DC and that he's got a second family stashed away in Nueva York. Now Politico reports his GOP opponents are giving him the Breck Girl treatment.

Almost as soon as New York magazine posted a short item online about Rubio’s “high-heeled booties,” there was Ted Cruz’s communications director, Rick Tyler, tweeting a link to it: “A vote for Marco Rubio Is a Vote for Men’s High-Heeled Booties,” he wrote.

Before an appearance on ABC’s The View on Wednesday, Rand Paul, with a bit of a lilt in his voice, filmed a video of himself picking out a pair, saying he’d seen “that Marco Rubio has these cute new boots and I don’t want to be outdone.”

Before long, the boots were fodder for conversation on cable news, with MSNBC folding the buzzy story into other, slightly newsier items: “RUBIO ADDS CAMPAIGN STAFF, AND NEW BOOTS,” one MSNBC chyron read on Wednesday.

“It was probably a poor choice for campaigning in New Hampshire, and Marco’s paying a little bit of a price for it,” said Katie Packer, a GOP consultant who is backing Rubio. “But his wife is a very fashionable, attractive woman and she probably saw those and said ‘those look sort of hot.’ It wouldn’t be the first time a man may have worn something his wife said looked good. I certainly don’t think he wore them to achieve any sort of political benefit.”

“You won’t see me wearing them,” Trump said on the radio Thursday. “I don’t know what to think of those boots.”

Ever the savvy provocateur, Trump suggested with uncharacteristic subtlety that the 5-foot 10-inch Rubio-- or is he actually 5-foot 8?-- might have a bit of a short man’s complex.

“It helps to be tall,” Trump added. “I don’t know, they’re big heels. They’re big heels. I mean, those were really up there. But you know, it’s almost like, it doesn’t matter too much.”

Rubio, terrified his machismo was being assaulted, screamed ISIS at the media several times before stomping off in a huff to pout.

Say, aren't Floridians -- white ones, anyways -- SUPPOSED to carry guns (and stand their ground with 'em)?

Robert Marucci -- "an admirable young man" in more than one way

"I think he's the most awesome person in the world. He stood up and he was the man of the house when I couldn't be."

-- Robert's mother, Melyssa Lieb

by Ken

Earlier versions of this story, it appears, have been circulating online since the weekend, but I didn't catch up with it till a friend forwarded the AOL Jobs account below (links onsite), with the subject line "An admirable young man."

One aspect of his admirableness is reflected in the photo above. (Alas, AOL didn't include any video. One suspects that the Sean Cody website has been experiencing something of a traffic-and-commerce spike since the weekend.)

Another aspect of his admirableness is made clear in the report: this 18-year-old high school student's material contribution to the support of his family via his after-school job.

As often happens in cases of school-discipline disputes, conspicuously different versions of the story seem to be coming from school authorities and the family, but I think they contain enough areas of overlap to raise some interesting questions.

Florida Student With Gay Porn After-School Job Allowed Back In Class
'Number one goal for students to graduate'

By AOL Jobs Staff

A Florida high school senior who was supporting his family with an after-school job as a gay porn actor was allowed back into class on Wednesday, a week after he was suspended, ABC News reports.

Robert Marucci, 18, known as "Noel" on adult film website Sean Cody, was sent home from Cocoa High School on Jan. 15 after his classmates learned about his after-school job, The Huffington Post reported.

Brevard County School District spokesperson Michelle Irwin told AOL Jobs the suspension had nothing to do with Marucci's choice of after-school job. Rather, it was because he "made statements that were of a nature that prompted the administration" to investigate. She noted the school district has no authority to regulate what a student does in his private life but has a responsibility to secure the safety of the school.

"We have other students that have chosen different lifestyles and we have always provided the appropriate support and options for them," Irwin told ABC News. "It is our number one goal for students to graduate," she added.

Dozens of students staged a walkout on Friday to protest the suspension, which his mother, Melyssa Lieb told CNN affiliate WPLG had been characterized to her by the principal as an "expulsion."

"That would not be true because a principal cannot expel a student. It is a pretty in-depth process," Irwin told AOL Jobs. "I don't know if she misunderstood."

Lieb told WPLG she supports her son, and said he became a target of bullies when students found his video online. She said he was suspended because the principal, Dr. Stephanie Soliven, didn't approve of his "explicit lifestyle" career.

Marucci told WKMG that school officials removed him from classes for being a "disruption" and threatening to bring a weapon to campus, the Daily News reported. He denied the charges.

A campus monitor overheard a group of students discussing Marucci's off-campus job on Jan. 14 and Marucci was brought in to discuss it later that day with administration, she said. Marucci was suspended the next day.

"I think he's the most awesome person in the world, he stood up and he was the man of the house when I couldn't be," citing financial hardship, Marucci's mother told WPLG.

Attempts by AOL Jobs to reach the teen and his mother were unsuccessful.

In 2010, Shawn Loftis, who directed and acted in a series of gay porn films, was dismissed from a substitute teaching gig in the Miami area, The Huffington Post reported. But the Florida Education Practices Commission subsequently ruled he was eligible to apply for a permanent teaching position.

The details that intrigue me, which I should say don't appear in all accounts of this story which I've seen, concern the apparent disruption between Robert and that group of fellow students which seems to have resulted in the precipitating event that came to the attention of school authorities.

It does appear that the nature of Robert's job came to the attention of his schoolmates, and that in consequence he was bullied by those other students. Some accounts describe the bullying as fairly severe. It's less clear that Robert made some mention of bringing in a gun, but if he did, and the authorities became aware of this, I"m trying to figure a way by which they could have been aware of it without being aware of both the charge of bullying and the nature of Robert's after-school job. However:

(1) If they were aware the bullying charge, how is it that only Robert was investigated as a disruption to the school? Does that make any sense?

(2) And since the nature of Robert's job seems to have been at the heart of whatever brought the authorities into the story, how is it possible that, as is now being claimed, that was not a factor in Robert's suspension?

I'm just wondering.

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