So weird. I wonder why Weinstein was fingered, because there are far more lecherous douchebags in Hollywood. Just none as big as him, I guess. So, I suppose the play is to take out the most visible one in an attempt to cause change?

A friend of mine was (is?) a failed actress, and she told me some crazy stories about the powerful Industry men who demanded sex in exchange for work. She says she never gave in, and I believe her due to her very limited body of work. If I recall correctly, there was a book published maybe 20 years ago about Hollywood's sexual depravity. "You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again," or something like that.

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War is god

Lots of folks in Tinseltown, people from a certain political party, and many figures in the media are scrambling to avoid the fallout and to distance themselves from Weinstein. But he's certainly left a wide money trail behind:

Former Obama Adviser Anita Dunn helped Harvey Weinstein strategize his response to the sexual harassment exposee.

"Anita Dunn, a top Obama campaign staffer and former White House communications director, helped offer damage control advice for the Hollywood mogul....

Dunn was not paid by Weinstein for her help, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But she did offer her PR advice, including in regards to a Sept. 23 Times story written by Megan Twohey. The story, about a controversy over Weinstein's work with AIDS charity amfAR, was thought to be a precursor to the big investigation posted on Thursday.

Sources said that Lanny Davis, former special counsel to Bill Clinton, has been central to the PR effort for Weinstein, who is a major Democratic donor. Dunn, for her part, is the managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a Washington public affairs firm with deep ties to Democratic politics. She was communications director for Obama’s 2008 campaign and served briefly in his administration."


Harvey Weinstein's lawyer also gave $10,000 to the Manhattan DA after that DA failed to file sexual harassment charges against him. How cozy.

"Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer delivered $10,000 to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. in 2015, in the months after Vance’s office decided not to prosecute Weinstein over sexual assault allegations, according to an International Business Times review of campaign finance documents. That contribution from attorney David Boies --- who previously headlined a fundraiser for Vance — was a fraction of the more than $182,000 that Boies, his son and his law partners have delivered to the Democrat during his political career.

Boies has done legal work for Weinstein since at least 2005, and his website at his law firm says his clients include The Weinstein Company."


David Boies was Al Gore's recount lawyer. Apparently he's been a big cash-money bestest friend of the DA -- Cyrus Vance, Jr. (whose father was once US Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter) -- who presides over the jurisdiction where a lot of very powerful movie, theater and media people live. That must all work out nicely for them.

Even CNN's Chris Cillizza grasps that this is all a problem for a certain political party.

"And it's hard to see how Obama and the Clintons -- Weinstein is a long time pal of Bill and Hillary -- can avoid putting out statements condemning him for his behavior. That's especially true since Weinstein isn't really denying the Times story; he's threatening a lawsuit simply saying the news organization didn't give him enough time to respond.

But there's more to this story than simply issuing statements condemning Weinstein or returning his now-tainted money. These paragraphs from the Times story gets to that broader point:

"In interviews, some of the former employees who said they had troubling experiences with Mr. Weinstein asked a common question: How could allegations repeating the same pattern — young women, a powerful male producer, even some of the same hotels — have accumulated for almost three decades?

"'It wasn't a secret to the inner circle,' said Kathy DeClesis, Bob Weinstein's assistant in the early 1990s. She supervised a young woman who left the company abruptly after an encounter with Harvey Weinstein and who later received a settlement, according to several former employees."

Then there's this from New York magazine's Rebecca Traister: "I have been having conversations about Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual harassment for more than 17 years."

It seems like Weinstein's boorish behavior -- to put it mildly -- was an open secret in the circles he ran in. The prevailing sentiment when the New York Times published its piece was not "WOW!" but rather "Finally!"

That's important. If everyone around Weinstein knew about his inappropriate conduct around women, why were so many Democratic politicians willing to pal around with him and/or accept his money?"


From some reports, Weinstein's lost huge power in Hollywood and in the media since his company and his movies have been tanking. Plus, he was a real a-hole, from many reports, so maybe the long knives came out when people saw their chance at a little payback?

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I was shocked, because I thought Harvey Weinstein was solidly gay. Then I realized I was thinking of Harvey Fierstein.


.

When does he start for Fox News??

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_____________________
Fester from Detroit, Mi

Me too.


Who the hell is he?

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

My name is H-, I'm a recovering political addict who tries to avoid the subject these days. I've been sober for, well, I'm not sure, a few days probably.

Anyway, dude, you need to attend a meeting asap. Writing "a certain political party" is like drinking from bottle in a brown paper bag.

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

I try to stay away from politics as much as possible, but there was no way around it with this story. But I don't want to get down into partisan mudslinging, so I went with "certain political party." ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Why write:


when you could just write: "Idiot pundit Chris Cillizza . . ."

I believe "idiot pundit" should precede all political pundits, e.g., idiot pundit Rush Limbaugh, idiot pundit Maureen Dowd, idiot pundit Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, Sean Hannity, etc.

Shoot, I suppose "pundit" suffices.

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

I hear these stories and I just don't understand. I guess the opportunity to make large on being the victim of a sexual predator is more important than assuring other women don't become victims as well. Isn't that what every woman who takes the money is doing?

And what about the women victims or witnesses that didn't get money? What are the journalistic standards for printing "Woman X came to speak with me, and she told me she was eye witness to Harvey Weinstein's sexual perversions Y and Z"?

And what about the men that see this same shit? There must have been men from all walks of life that knew just as much as the women coming forward. They just keep quiet?

An admittedly shaky hypothesis: In America our tribalism and our media love to take people down. However, on a very personal basis nobody wants to be the particular heavy responsible for ruining someone's life -- even if that someone is doing horrible shit.

The real question is not why, but why now?

It’s been known for years, decades, that Weinstein did this shit.

It doesn’t matter though. He’s “right on the issues” so no real harm will come to him.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

My favorite part is the accusation that this is a vast right wing conspiracy. Seriously? Democrats can't get rid of his money fast enough. For an interesting read, check out the donation patterns to Cyrus Vance Jr. from both Weinstein and Weinstein's attorney David Boises. Things that make you go hmmmm.

How could this conflict of interest possibly be legal????


A conflict of interest is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation or decision-making of that individual or organization. Wikipedia

   It appears that the NYT suppressed the story when they had it in 2004. His lawyer/advocate Lisa Bloom (Gloria Allred's daughter) has parted ways with him. Weinstein has been fired from his own production company.
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http://www.newsweek.com/...sconduct-over-680451
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Good news though; according to his statement, he is now going to focus his rage on the NRA, has hired therapists to help overcome his demons, and is donating 5 million dollars for scholarships for women directors at USC. The man is full of liberal goodness, so we should give him a break!
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https://www.nytimes.com/...arvey-weinstein.html

It seems tales of his groping, grasping and fapping in front of stars, starlets and ingenues are legion and growing by the day, now that the dam has broken.

Nice to see that the actress and semi-literate, pu$$yhat-wearing slam poet, Ashley Judd, who apparently fell into the tender ministrations of Weinstein more than 20 years ago -- and made several movies with him since then -- has bravely come forward and spilled the beans. Now that the Hollywood mogul's on the downside of his career and no longer of any use to her, that is. ;-)

Still waiting for all those woke late-night Hollywood talk show hosts -- the Jimmy Kimmel-types, as well as Saturday Night Live-- to take a shot at parodying Mr. (no longer) Miramax. It seems SNL considered doing just that this past weekend, but in the end declined to do so because, in the words of founder Lorne Michaels, "It's a New York thing." Harv's a fellow Noo Yawker, don't you see?

I don't want to be too hard on those folks out there in La-La Land, though. Because we all know that Hollywood is America's conscience, or something. They're special, in other words. And should be treated so. Ummmmmmmm...

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Yet Trump is a New Yorker and SNL has no problems parodying him. So Mr. Michaels excuse, reasoning doesn't hold a lot of water. Lorne Michaels is a checkshit, plain and simple.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Good point. I used to comfort myself by using Occam's Razor to explain most events, but these are wild times... so wild that I don't think Occam's Razor can be my default any longer.

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War is god

How cute, what a quaint concept...

My guess is, a lot of people with long knives were just waiting for the old bull to lose his vigor (i.e. his power and influence, in Weinstein's case) so that they could strike. From some reports, Harv's brother Bob also wanted him gone from the board of Miramax, which had lately produced a string of turkeys under Harvey's guidance.

A report out today says, as well, that New York magazine had the entire story last year, but had been intimidated into not publishing it:

"New York magazine had the Harvey Weinstein story - -or nearly had it -- a year ago but didn’t run anything after the movie mogul and his team of lawyers and p.r. consultants intervened.


Reporter Ben Wallace spent months interviewing dozens of people in Weinstein’s world in the hope of exposing Weinstein’s history of sexual aggression toward young women.

“New York magazine had the story a year ago, and Harvey had it killed,” one source told me.

“Harvey was sweating bullets. He sat down with Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss, and they were still going ahead. Then, it suddenly went away. The reporter must be kicking himself now.”

Wallace declined to speak to me."

New York magazine fumbled its own Harvey Weinstein exposé | Page Six

There's some wiggle room in that story, but given Weinstein's reputation -- and the reputation of his bulldog lawyers, with both Weinstein and his ambulance chasers immediately attacking any source threatening disclosure of his fap-tastic past exploits -- it seems plausible.

The former Miramax chieftan also seems to have run Hollywood as his personal fiefdom and private Playboy bunny ranch, passing out favors to preferred media companies and individuals, none of whom dared to go up against the man for fear of losing their access and special treatment. Such treatment included career enhancement in the case of many Tinseltown reporters if they played ball and went along, even if they had personal information about -- or personal experience of -- his sexual harassment and predatory sexual nature.

Essentially, he compromised the media through a reign of terror on those he didn't like and sheer force of will and the raining down of favors on those he did. And, in turn, the media became complicit in his sexual harassment of women, knowingly, willingly and cynically.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Another good article saying something similar...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/...hink/article/2009995

Yup. Speaking up might have hurt their chances to be in one of his movies.

Hollywood’s Loud Silence on Harvey Weinstein’s Sexual Harassment Allegations: Several high-profile Hollywood figures flatly refused to comment on the allegations of serial sexual harassment and sexual assault against the influential movie mogul.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Looks like Matt Damon and Russell Crowe were also complicit in hushing up Weinstein's excesses:

Matt Damon, Russell Crowe Reportedly Helped Kill a 2004 New York Times Harvey Weinstein Article

"Though the New York Times has been widely celebrated for its article exposing decades of sexual-harassment accusations against Harvey Weinstein, one journalist claims the paper sat on an earlier article detailing the producer’s misconduct. Sharon Waxman, founder of the Wrap, writes that her own investigate reporting, which took her on an international trip to uncover rumors of Weinstein’s sexual misconduct, was cut from the Times in 2004 under pressure from several Hollywood elites. Waxman alleges in the Wrap that Matt Damon and Russell Crowe called her “directly” to dispel the reports she was following about Miramax’s Italian head Fabrizio Lombardo, who was allegedly hired “to take care of Weinstein’s women needs.” She says that because of their influence, and interference from Weinstein, whose company was a big advertiser in the Times, the article was edited to remove the more salacious details. Damon and Crowe had previously worked with Weinstein on pictures like Good Will Hunting, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and Cinderella Man."

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

    My post had a link referencing the Waxman story, but we know this, the NY Mag story, as well as the idea that it was common knowledge can be disregarded, because the NYT is the, if not infallible, at least ever-even-handed newspaper of record for the left.

Apparently, big-time star Jessica Chastain has also come out on Twitter and admitted to what everyone already knows: that Weinstein's serial sexual harassment of a galaxy of females was an open secret in Hollywood and New York. Her rationale for not saying something about it long ago? It was "the victim's story to tell," not hers.I call that some serious rationalizing right there. ;-)

Eh, I'm sure the fact that she wanted to remain on the mogul's contacts list, in case he had a juicy, well-paying starring role for her, didn't enter into her thinking at all, right?

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Apparently another story was in the works for some time

http://www.msn.com/...r-AAtgoOX?li=BBnb7Kz

Between this and Cosby it is almost as if powerful men in Hollywood have long taken advantage of young actresses and no one would call them on it out of fear of retaliation.

If only they had the good sense to never be alone with a woman they wouldn't be subject to these made up allegations.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.