https://twitter.com/EleanorMontague/status/1095194973602045952

Just attended my first ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ rally where my colleague BBC cameraman Rob Skeans was attacked by a Trump supporter. The crowd had been whipped up into a frenzy against the media by Trump and other speakers all night #TrumpElPaso

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1094004925699424256

In an initial memo, the doctor who did Trump's physical today says:

I am happy to announce the President of the United States in in very good health and i anticipate he will remain so for the duration of his Presidency and beyond


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Something unusual happened to me yesterday. Actually, for me it wasn’t just unusual — it was a first. I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Or at least that’s what the top people at the National Enquirer thought. I’m glad they thought that, because it emboldened them to put it all in writing. Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.

AMI, the owner of the National Enquirer, led by David Pecker, recently entered into an immunity deal with the Department of Justice related to their role in the so-called “Catch and Kill” process on behalf of President Trump and his election campaign. Mr. Pecker and his company have also been investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government.

I didn’t know much about most of that a few weeks ago when intimate texts messages from me were published in the National Enquirer. I engaged investigators to learn how those texts were obtained, and to determine the motives for the many unusual actions taken by the Enquirer. As it turns out, there are now several independent investigations looking into this matter.

Back to the story: Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is “apoplectic” about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve.A few days after hearing about Mr. Pecker’s apoplexy, we were approached, verbally at first, with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn’t stop our investigation.

https://medium.com/jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f



Letters from the National Enquirer are included in Bezos' post.

By Peter Baker and Michael M. Grynbaum
Feb. 5, 2019

WASHINGTON — For public consumption, President Trump planned to use his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to appeal for bipartisan unity. But at a private lunch for television anchors earlier in the day he offered searing assessments of a host of Democrats.

Mr. Trump dismissed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as “dumb,” called Senator Chuck Schumer of New York a “nasty son of a bitch” and mocked Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia for “choking like a dog” at a news conference where he tried to explain a racist yearbook photo, according to multiple people in the room.

He said he hoped he would get to run against Mr. Biden. “I hope it’s Biden,” Mr. Trump said. “Biden was never very smart. He was a terrible student. His gaffes are unbelievable. When I say something that you might think is a gaffe, it’s on purpose; it’s not a gaffe. When Biden says something dumb, it’s because he’s dumb.”

Not every target was a Democrat. He recounted again the story of what he considered Senator John McCain’s betrayal in voting against advancing a measure to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care program. Although Mr. McCain has since died, Mr. Trump remains upset.“By the way,” Mr. Trump said, “he wrote a book and the book bombed.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/politics/trump-lunch-news-anchors.html

White supremacist and former GOP Louisiana state senator David Duke appeared to endorse Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 campaign for president as other Democrats are being blasted by pro-Israel lobbyists and publications.

Duke, who was head of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, posted a set of tweets endorsing Gabbard's 2020 presidential run and changed the background of his Twitter account Monday, which boasts more than 50,000 followers. A "Tulsi Gabbard for President" banner features the banner tagline, "Finally a candidate who will actually put America First rather than Israel First!"

Duke also endorsed Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, although the then-Republican candidate Trump denied any knowledge of the former KKK Grand Wizard in a March 2016 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. Duke again lauded Trump's presidency following the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia rally in which Trump claimed there were decent people on "both sides."


https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-david-duke-endorse-bds-israel-ilhan-omar-west-bank-boycott-1318365



Her campaign must be so thrilled.

At this very moment, a small army of White House aides is scrambling, circled around a computer in an office in the West Wing pecking out a State of the Shitshow speech they hope will “capture the voice” of a president more given to grunts and verbal excrescences than the lofty rhetoric of presidents. Here’s a spoiler; their work won’t matter.

That’s not merely because when the Trump administration sends us their speechwriters, they’re not sending their best. They are sending the indifferently educated, culturally buffoonish, shiftier dregs of authoritarian nationalist fanboys Donald Trump manages to recruit from random bus stations, hobo squats, and TPUSA Trump Young Pioneers camps. Some, I assume are good people, but I’m almost certainly wrong.

All this feverish labor on draft after draft of the president’s remarks tonight is, like all White House activity, utterly irrelevant and contingent on the president’s mood at game time. Trump could easily whisper to himself, “Fuck it, we’ll do it live!” and shred the entire thing. He could rely on his famous gut instinct and yodel on for an hour about the imagined glories of his gracious reign.

You’ll spot several styles and tells in the speech tonight. Here’s what to look for in tonight’s river of Trumpian word vomit, a guide to what’s real, what’s fake, what’s there for base-voter management, and what’s there just to play the news media.

https://thebulwark.com/your-guide-to-tonights-trumpian-word-vomit/

https://twitter.com/MikevWUSA/status/1091474249620033536

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Say hello to Justin Fairfax, Virginia's possible soon-to-be new Governor



Justin was elected Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia on November 7, 2017. Justin is only the second African-American in history, and the first in nearly 30 years since the tenure of Governor L. Douglas Wilder, to be elected to statewide office in Virginia. His Inauguration took place on January 13, 2018. https://www.ltgov.virginia.gov/


https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1091485251258466304

To add to the shock, a page from Northam's yearbook at the Virginia Military Institute listed one of his nicknames as "Coonman," a racial slur. Story from @Grace_Segers https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ralph-northams-yearbook-page-shows-man-in-kkk-costume-and-another-apparently-in-blackface/ …
https://archive.org/details/bomb1981virg/page/90 …

https://twitter.com/letsgomathias/status/1091135670679158785


@RepTimRyan has alerted the House Ethics Committee that @SteveKingIA is using “government resources” to promote a white nationalist blog, raising possibility that effort to censure or expel King is still alive

The brother of Bezos' mistress, Lauren Sanchez, is a Trump supporter and friends with Roger Stone and Carter Page




Gavin de Becker, the Amazon chief’s longtime personal security consultant and the point person for the investigation, confirmed to The Daily Beast on Wednesday that his probe has scrutinized Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos mistress Lauren Sanchez and a personal and business associate of Trumpworld figures including Roger Stone, Carter Page, and Scottie Nell Hughes.


On Wednesday, The Daily Beast first reported the existence of that investigation, which is taking place independent of Amazon and being funded by Bezos personally. Three sources familiar with the inquiry said it was increasingly convinced that whoever leaked the text messages to the Enquirer, which ran a conspicuously large 12-page spread on Bezos’ affair, harbored political animosity towards Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post.


Asked about Sanchez, de Becker, a former Reagan administration appointee and Justice Department adviser, told The Daily Beast, “Michael Sanchez has been among the people we’ve been speaking with and looking at.” De Becker would not elaborate on their conversations, and stressed that the investigation is ongoing. But he confirmed that “strong leads point to political motives.”

According to two sources familiar with de Becker’s investigation, Sanchez has suggested that the “deep state,” and specifically the National Security Agency, may have been responsible for obtaining text messages from Bezos’ phone. Investigators have not taken that possibility seriously.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bezos-investigators-question-the-brother-of-his-mistress-lauren-sanchez-in-national-enquirer-leak-probe?ref=home