According to an email in the <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4355835/1325/5/giuffre-v-maxwell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second tranche of documents</a> related to the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, former President Bill Clinton allegedly put pressure on Vanity Fair to kill a story about sex trafficking and his &#8220;good friend J.E.&#8221;
The documents, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/names-of-jeffrey-epsteins-associates-to-be-unsealed-with-few-exceptions">unsealed</a> pursuant to a mid-December court order from Manhattan Federal Judge Loretta Preska, were part of a civil lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre against the financier&#8217;s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
While the majority of the documents in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-whats-in-the-epstein-docs-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first tranche</a> pertained almost solely to the criminal behavior exhibited by Epstein and Maxwell, the second tranche delivered a list of associates whom Giuffre believed could have knowledge of that criminal behavior.
Among those with potential knowledge of Epstein&#8217;s and Maxwell&#8217;s dealings listed in the documents were Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Clinton; one of Clinton&#8217;s advisers, Doug Band; and Sophie Biddle. Others listed in the documents included deceased model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, deceased Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM), and financier Les Wexner.
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Here we see the addition of other John Does and witnesses (some new) &#8211; 
All with potential knowledge of &quot;Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein&#39;s sexual trafficking&quot;
Bill Clinton Doug Band (Clinton advisor) Prince Andrew Sophie Biddle <a href="https://t.co/KMIAnoY0z4">pic.twitter.com/KMIAnoY0z4</a>
&mdash; Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) <a href="https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1743054927893545233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
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According to one email included in the filing, Giuffre wrote to journalist Sharon Churcher about Clinton&#8217;s alleged efforts to kill a story that might have shed light on Epstein&#8217;s sex trafficking activities.
&#8220;When I was doing some research into VF yesterday, it does concern me what they could want to write about me considering that B. Clinton walked into VF and threatened them not to write sex-trafficing [sic] articles about his good friend J.E.,&#8221; Giuffre wrote.
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Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter pushed back, telling <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/04/bill-clinton-put-pressure-on-vanity-fair-not-to-cover-epste/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Telegraph</a>: &#8220;This categorically did not happen.&#8221;
Journalist Vicky Ward <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/why-didnt-vanity-fair-break-the-jeffrey-epstein-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener">also claimed</a> that Epstein had worked to prevent Vanity Fair from writing a similar story.
&#8220;&#8216;I have reports here about you, your husband — I have everything under the sun that was sent to me by people who want to be helpful,'&#8221; Ward <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12930469/vanity-fair-graydon-carter-denies-bill-clinton-jeffrey-epstein-claims.html?ns_mchannel=rss&amp;ns_campaign=1490&amp;ito=social-twitter_mailonline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">quoted Epstein</a>, saying he had threatened her directly after she interviewed two of his victims, sisters Maria and Annie Farmer.
Carter denied that as well, saying that the outlet had opted to cut certain information from the story because it had not been submitted in time and had not met legal standards.
The documents do not go so far as to accuse Clinton of doing anything illegal.
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The Epstein method of operation is well known at this point, but it&#39;s important to see the words of his victims.
One victim brought other high school girls to Epstein.
Epstein wanted her &quot;emancipated&quot; so she could live with him. <a href="https://t.co/k7CWblMVFh">pic.twitter.com/k7CWblMVFh</a>
&mdash; Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) <a href="https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1743059464909898025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Other documents spoke to Epstein&#8217;s pattern of behavior — bringing in girls and then sending them out to recruit other girls — and efforts to get the girls in his orbit to become emancipated, giving him more access and control over them.

2023 Clinton Global Initiative

Second Epstein File Dump Alleges Clinton Tried To Bury Vanity Fair Sex Trafficking Story

Bill Clinton

Courts

Ghislaine Maxwell

Jeffrey Epstein

Sex Trafficking

Vanity Fair

Pop culture and fashion magazine Vanity Fair raised eyebrows with a Tuesday headline comparing Twitter owner Elon Musk with former KKK Grand Wizard <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-kkk-grand-wizard-david-duke-omar-most-ryan-saavedra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">David Duke</a> – all in an effort to undermine Florida Republican Governor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sunny-hostin-trashes-desantis-over-marine-vet-fundraiser-2-million-for-killing-a-young-black-man" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ron DeSantis</a> ahead of his 2024 presidential bid.
&#8220;Report: Ron DeSantis Will Formally Announce His 2024 Bid With Elon Musk, Because Apparently David Duke Wasn’t Available,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/ron-desantis-elon-musk-2024-announcement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inflammatory headline</a> splashed across the page in bold type read, followed by the subhead, &#8220;Launching with the Twitter owner is certainly a choice.&#8221;
The article, written by Bess Levin, continued in that same vein right from the beginning: &#8220;He is said to be planning to formally jump into the 2024 race during a conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk, because apparently other neo-Nazi sympathizers weren’t available.&#8221;
Levin went on to further attack Musk, alleging that his attempts to make Twitter a haven for &#8220;free speech&#8221; have given cover to a rise in white supremacy instead. Referencing ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson&#8217;s plan to reinvent his own show on the platform – despite Musk&#8217;s statement that he had not made any deal with Carlson – she asserted that Musk was actively giving a home to &#8220;hate speech.&#8221;
She then pivoted to DeSantis, suggesting that Musk&#8217;s alleged alignment with the &#8220;far right&#8221; might be attractive to the Florida governor – and lest her audience misses the implied message throughout, she concluded with the outright statement: &#8220;Anyway, just as a reminder, a DeSantis presidency is as terrible a prospect as a Trump one.&#8221;
Musk&#8217;s friend David Sacks, who is set to moderate the discussion between the billionaire entrepreneur and imminent presidential candidate, shared a screenshot of the headline along with the comment, &#8220;The media has lost its mind.&#8221;
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The media has lost its mind. <a href="https://t.co/j9awsApaY2">pic.twitter.com/j9awsApaY2</a>
&mdash; David Sacks (@DavidSacks) <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1661199368148643840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Former National Security Council staffer Joshua Steinman noted that the left-leaning media coverage of DeSantis was no less dishonest when attacking DeSantis than it had been in attacking former President Donald Trump.
&#8220;This was what it was like for four years working for President Trump. No good deed went un-spun by the Washington Press Corps. No matter what we did. We could have brought peace to the Middle East* and they would have called us traitors**,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshuaSteinman/status/1661256732633608197" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, adding, &#8220;*We did this, **And they did this.&#8221;
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-27229">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
And while a number of others responded to the headline in the same way, others pointed out the fact that the more unhinged the left-leaning media became, the more average Americans would gravitate toward messages that reflected sanity.
&#8220;DeSantis and his team very, very much appreciate these headlines and would like as many more as you are capable of offering during the primary, MSM,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/EsotericCD/status/1661334246571532288" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one noted</a>.
&#8220;Elon Musk is a 70-30 or an 80-20 issue in America. He might be really unpopular among the handful of people who are just now signing up for Mastodon accounts, but for the rest of the country he’s still the guy who builds rockets and futuristic cars and has fun with Joe Rogan,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelbd/status/1661325168805806082" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another added</a>.

Elon Musk

Vanity Fair Compares Elon Musk To David Duke In Low-Blow Attack On DeSantis

David Duke

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Media

Ron DeSantis

U.S.

The first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, came out in 1981. Back then, Harrison Ford was 38.
Now Ford&#8217;s 80 years old, not exactly the age of an action hero. And the fifth installment of the movie is not faring well with critics.
&#8220;It’s all pretty goofy and laborious over its 142-minute running time,&#8221; Peter Howell of the Toronto Star <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/review/2023/05/21/indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny-neither-triumph-nor-disaster.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
The Rolling Stone review was even more harsh. &#8220;[Y]ou either die an intellectual-property hero trapped in amber, or you live long enough to see yourself riding a fake horse against a green-screened subway background when most of your peers have slowed down.&#8221;
&#8220;[Y]ou’re largely left with what you imagine you’d get if you programmed a 21st century A.I. program to write up nostalgia-bait for the children of the late 20th century,&#8221; critic David Fear <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny-review-harrison-ford-phoebe-waller-bridge-cannes-nazis-james-mangold-1234736151/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
&#8220;Ford still has the fortitude to play the part. But just having him show up to crack whips and crack wise in the name of bringing back that old Indy thrills-spills-chills magic isn’t enough of an excuse to have him don the fedora one last time. &#8216;Things move forward,&#8217; one character tells Jones. &#8216;And sometimes, they move backward.&#8217; Someone may have turned the dial a little too much on the latter’s side this time around,&#8221; Fear added.
While the movie is big, the writing is small.
&#8220;[O]ne can feel the four credited screenwriters grasping at inspiration and coming up short. What they did manage to make would be perfectly fine as a standalone adventure film starring some other character, but it’s not worthy of the whip,&#8221; Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/hunting-treasures-punching-nazis-indiana-jones-is-back-in-the-dial-of-destiny" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
With a running time of nearly 2:30, reviewers said the $300 million movie is a bloated mess with endless chase scenes. &#8220;That nonstop pacing might sound ideal, but it’s mostly an exhausting slog,&#8221; David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny-review-harrison-ford-james-mangold-1235495914/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
And so much phony CGI. &#8220;Part of what dims the enjoyment of this concluding chapter is just how glaringly fake so much of it looks,&#8221; Rooney wrote.
Maybe the filmmakers should have stopped at four installments. While some reviews said Ford still has his trademark swagger, one reviewer wrote: &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure how many fans want to see Indiana Jones as a broken, helpless old man who cowers in the corner while his patronising goddaughter takes the lead, but that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re given, and it&#8217;s as bleak as it sounds.&#8221;
(Disclosure: The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/introducing-dw-kids" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced plans</a> for kids entertainment content.)
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny new clip official - Cannes Film Festival 2023" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jY5Paugfurs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

“Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny” Photocall – The 76th Annual Cannes Film Festival

‘Exhausting Slog,’ ‘Glaringly Fake’: Critics Shred Disney’s ‘Indiana Jones 5’

'Exhausting Slog,' Glaringly Fake': Critics Shred Disney’s ‘Indiana Jones 5’

Harrison Ford

Hollywood

Movies

The Hollywood Reporter

Nicole Kidman is one of the most famous A-list actresses in the world – and one of the highest-paid. The “Big Little Lies” star has earned numerous prestigious awards for her work, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards.
The 54-year-old is a highly respected member of the industry. That’s exactly why there’s been so much backlash against a photo Kidman posed for that graced the cover of Vanity Fair. In it, the Emmy Award winner is wearing a very revealing outfit. Fans are expressing their confusion and disgust over whoever styled Kidman this way.
&#8220;One of the most prolific actresses (and also most beautiful) and she is presented as a skimpily dressed school girl in 2022,&#8221; one commenter wrote on <a href="https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1494369319056203779">Twitter</a>, responding to the cover photo. &#8220;Who thought this was a good idea? The mind boggles.&#8221;
The Vanity Fair shoot styled Kidman in a &#8220;student&#8221;-style look from fashion brand Miu Miu to celebrate its long-running Hollywood cover issue.
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You might think of Nicole Kidman as one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But the ‘Being the Ricardos’ star and Best Actress nominee says she approaches each role like she&#39;s fresh out of theater class. <a href="https://t.co/xjJmU2nV9U">https://t.co/xjJmU2nV9U</a>
&mdash; VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) <a href="https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1494369319056203779?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2022</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Presenting our 28th annual Hollywood Issue, starring Academy Award nominee Nicole Kidman,&#8221; the publication captioned an Instagram post. &#8220;The ‘Being the Ricardos’ star has held the keys to Hollywood for decades, and her latest role as Lucille Ball clinched her a fifth Oscar nomination. Still, after 40 years of acting in more than 80 film and TV projects, Kidman says she approaches each role like she is fresh out of theatre class.&#8221;
Plenty of fans headed to the comments to express their disdain and confusion over the style they chose for Kidman’s big cover shot.
&#8220;Very confused by this completely bizarre and unexpected look. And not in a good way,&#8221; one person wrote.
“Absolutely creepy,” another echoed while other words used were “horrible” and “a mess.”
But her skin-baring look did have some supporters. 
“Haters are gonna hate! Nicole is looking amazing!” one fan said on Instagram. A Twitter user praised the photos as “an absolute serve.”
Miu Miu debuted its spring/summer 2022 season with this outfit being described as &#8220;rebellious school girl meets chic teacher,&#8221; in Vogue UK, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/nicole-kidman-magazine-cover-social-media">reported</a>. Other A-listers including Emily Ratajkowski and Hailey Bieber recently wore similar looks from the brand without as much fanfare. But they lack the clout Kidman has, plus they are much younger. Kidman’s age is part of the reason for so much backlash.
Most recently, the “Eyes Wide Shut” alum starred in the 2021 biographical drama “Being the Ricardos” which explored the life of “I Love Lucy” star Lucille Ball. 
The actress received praise for her performance after many fans of the show expressed skepticism that Kidman could pull off the role. The negativity became so intense that Kidman and her co-star, Javier Bardem, contemplated backing out of the film completely. 
The Daily Wire’s first original film, Shut In, has made its cinematic debut, being met with rave reviews. The Daily Wire is building an alternative to the leftist entertainment industry, one gripping movie at a time. Join us in this mission and stream Shut In today by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">Daily Wire member</a>.

70th Anniversary Red Carpet Arrivals – The 70th Annual Cannes Film Festival

Fans Slam Nicole Kidman As ‘Skimpily Dressed School Girl’ On Vanity Fair Cover: ‘The Mind Boggles’

Nicole Kidman

No media analyst believes Vanity Fair is a &#8220;news&#8221; magazine. It&#8217;s a glossy liberal rag. But on Dec. 16, it displayed some amazing partisan gymnastics on the offspring of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
This headline by writer Bess Levin was certainly clickbait for the haters: &#8220;Ivanka Trump Faces Off With Father to See How Many People They Can Kill With COVID-19.&#8221; We can guess no &#8220;independent fact-checkers&#8221; will get involved to insist that, in reality, the Trumps aren&#8217;t plotting to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
Just a month ago, Vanity Fair ran a story by a purported ex-best friend of Ivanka Trump&#8217;s in which she claimed that Trump once asked, &#8220;Why would you tell me to read a book about f—-ing poor people?&#8221;
Levin&#8217;s Ivanka screed carried a subhead reading, &#8220;The first daughter, a noted epidemiologist, doesn&#8217;t think lockdowns are &#8216;grounded in science.'&#8221; That&#8217;s not exactly what Ivanka tweeted in response to a video of a businessman frustrated with the lockdowns. &#8220;These blanket lockdowns are not grounded in science,&#8221; she said. &#8220;These arbitrary rules imposed by callous politicians are destroying lives. It is just wrong for small business owners to have fight so hard to keep their American dream alive.&#8221;
Levin sneered: &#8220;Yes, that&#8217;s noted epidemiologist Ivanka Trump decrying lockdowns as the country hurtles toward an estimated 450,000 deaths by February 1, a figure that can largely be blamed on her idiot husband and father.&#8221;
Most government officials aren&#8217;t epidemiologists, but this is what liberals do to anyone who questions the most dramatic lockdowns. Ivanka is trying to say that the government rules are arbitrary — just like the liberal media&#8217;s rules. Massive leftist &#8220;racial justice&#8221; protests (or massive Biden victory celebrations) were somehow not so-called superspreader events. No one shuts down a government building or a press conference because of the risk of large gatherings. Some states impose strict limits on churches but not on strip clubs. That doesn&#8217;t look like &#8220;science&#8221;; it looks like politics.
But Levin quoted a tweet in which the liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, expressed disgust, saying: &#8220;(R)ather than turning to doctors and scientists, the closest advisors to the president were his fashion-brand owning daughter and her slumlord husband. &#8230; This is why we need tighter nepotism laws.&#8221;
Just like Vanity Fair, CREW functions as a Democratic Party messaging machine. Search the name Hunter Biden on its website and you&#8217;ll see a flurry of anti-Trump actions it has undertaken.
In a dramatic nepotism contrast, Joe Biden&#8217;s most embarrassing child was rewarded with a Vanity Fair story by Emily Kirkpatrick headlined, &#8220;Hunter Biden Prepares for His First Solo Art Show Amid Ongoing DOJ Investigation,&#8221; with the subheading &#8220;The president-elect&#8217;s son revealed earlier this year that painting &#8216;is literally keeping me sane.'&#8221;
Kirkpatrick was quoting a New York Times puff piece from back in March. She avoided any mention of the more negative facts in that piece: that Biden admitted to having been addicted to crack for four years and going to rehab seven or eight times. She touted that this unemployed lobbyist is &#8220;reportedly in the midst of signing a deal to be represented as an artist by Georges Berges Gallery in New York City with a solo exhibition in the works for next year.&#8221;
Vanity Fair described Biden as a &#8220;venture capitalist turned artist, whose studio is in the pool house of his Hollywood Hills home.&#8221; He&#8217;s leaving the family business behind to work with &#8220;a metal straw he uses to blow alcohol ink onto Japanese Yupo paper, creating abstract layers of colors and concentric circles.&#8221;
In the midst of a historic pandemic, Vanity Fair has valiantly avoided any social distancing from the Biden propaganda bubble.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Ivanka Trump

GRAHAM: Ivanka, Hunter And Vanity Unfair

Hunter Biden

Media Bias

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) recently graced the cover of swanky magazine Vanity Fair, which featured the socialist darling wearing pricey outfits upwards of $14,000 for the photoshoot.
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-vanity-fair-outfits-14000-curse-trump-out">reported</a>, &#8220;The progressive lawmaker from New York &#8212; whose policies often sway far to the left of more centrist Democrats &#8212; has in the past condemned politicians that she says are beholden to Wall Street, even as she was gifted a $2,850 suit from Loewe for the shoot, according to reports by the Daily Mail.&#8221;
The outfits, including a polka dot collared dress, a blue blazer, and a &#8220;suffragette white&#8221; get-up, totaled more than $14,000, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-vanity-fair-outfits-14000-curse-trump-out">according</a> to the Daily Mail.
&#8220;In one portion of the interview,&#8221; the Daily Mail noted, AOC &#8220;said &#8216;dressing the part has been an unexpected struggle, but it’s also a way to connect with constituents&#8217; while wearing an $800 dress and $1,450 earrings.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez is best known for authoring the radical &#8220;Green New Deal,&#8221; which has an estimated price tag of up to $93 trillion over the course of a decade, according to economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin &#8212; a plan certain to dramatically spike taxes.
The plan would &#8220;tally between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10-years, concludes American Action Forum, which is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the non-partisan CBO from 2003 to 2005,&#8221; Bloomberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aocs-latest-green-new-deal-price-tag-10-trillion-josh-hammer">reported</a> last year.
The price tag would amount to $650,000 per U.S. household. 
During her interview with Vanity Fair, AOC lambasted President Donald Trump over his apparently minimal payment in taxes in 2017, which President Donald Trump outright rejects.
“These are the same people saying that we can’t have tuition-free public colleges because there’s no money,” the New York representative says, “when these motherf*****s are only paying $750 a year in taxes.”
Trump, who is currently under audit by the IRS, said he prepaid <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/22/trump-says-he-prepaid-millions-and-millions-in-taxes-431509">millions and millions of dollars</a> in taxes.
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AOC in suffragist white, on cover of Vanity Fair. <a href="https://t.co/QeqOZNO5ct">pic.twitter.com/QeqOZNO5ct</a>
&mdash; katie rosman (@katierosman) <a href="https://twitter.com/katierosman/status/1321422559980769282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
AOC also claimed victimhood against the Right, suggesting conservatives are sexist.
“It’s very dehumanizing in both ways, strangely, both the negative and the positive,” she said of the Right.
“It’s not an accident that, every cycle, the boogeyman of the Democrats is a woman,” Ocasio-Cortez emphasized. “A couple of cycles ago, it was Pelosi. Then it was Hillary, and now it’s me.”
AOC added that it&#8217;s &#8220;legitimately hard being a first-generation woman &#8230; and being working class, trying to navigate a professional environment. &#8230; It continues to take me so long to try to figure out how to look put-together without having a huge designer closet.&#8221;
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For V.F.’s December cover, <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> opens up about her father’s influence on her political life, the day Ted Yoho lost his shit, and the power she finds in her iconic red lip. Read the cover story now:
Photographs by Tyler Mitchell. <a href="https://t.co/xAbI0YAekC">https://t.co/xAbI0YAekC</a> <a href="https://t.co/7DbVJFJELw">pic.twitter.com/7DbVJFJELw</a>
&mdash; VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) <a href="https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1321410648463544321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-says-call-me-radical-loaded-word-with-long-history/">self-proclaimed radical</a> openly embraced &#8220;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-explains-what-democratic-socialism-means-2019-3">democratic socialism</a>&#8221; during an interview with Business Insider back in 2019.
“So when millennials talk about concepts like democratic socialism, we&#8217;re not talking about these kinds of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-socialism-focus-line-of-attack-against-2020-democrats-2019-2" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="40" data-uri="4a2aafcebaeb97c51946a7c866320e0e">‘Red Scare’ boogeyman</a>,” she said. “We&#8217;re talking about countries and systems that already exist that have already been proven to be successful in the modern world.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re talking about single-payer health care that has already been successful in many different models, from Finland to Canada to the UK,” she continued.

House Progressives Introduce People’s Housing Reform

Socialist Darling AOC’s Outfits For Vanity Fair Shoot Cost Upwards Of $14,000

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

A common tactic of left-wing media outlets is to ignore a story, wait while only conservative media outlets cover it, and then claim it’s a conservative conspiracy or right-wing hoax.
Vanity Fair is now following a similar tactic, having passed on Reade’s allegation and now scolding conservatives who stood by President Donald Trump even after 20+ women accused him of sexual assault, though the evidence for their allegations is thin. The New York Times’ Ben Smith <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/business/media/tara-reade-joe-biden-media.html">reported</a> on April 30 that TV news outlets weren’t booking Reade – even though his employer took 19 days to report her allegations. Smith pointed out that “traditional media” like the Times “waded in carefully,” followed quickly by “fast-moving news site Business Insider,” which reported details that added “weight” to Reade’s story.
“The reporter, Rich McHugh, had taken <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tara-reade-files-criminal-complaint-against-joe-biden-2020-4">the story</a> to Vanity Fair first, which declined to publish it, a spokesperson for Vanity Fair confirmed,” Smith reported.
Vanity Fair is now distorting the issue with the conservative movement’s embrace of Reade, by publishing an article titled, “Conservative Media Appears Ready To ‘Believe Women’ Against Biden,” even though that’s not what is happening.
Sure, some or many in conservative media may believe Reade simply because she’s making an allegation against a Democrat, but the major outcry from conservative media is the different standard applied to Biden and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault just before he was set to be confirmed. The allegations against Kavanaugh were incredibly thin, with significant details missing and denials and lack of memory from people who supposedly witnessed the event some 30 years earlier. Yet the allegations against Kavanaugh from Christine Blasey Ford are still deemed “credible” even though there’s no evidence the two were ever in the same place together.
Further, Biden has built his reputation as a “women’s rights” champion by supporting policies that deny due process rights to men, yet now that he has been accused, he claims he always supported vigorous investigation of a woman’s claims.
And let’s not forget that Vanity Fair, which is now criticizing conservative media for covering the Reade allegations, sent reporters to Kavanaugh’s high school to try and dig up dirt on the institution in order to smear the judge, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-everything-thats-wrong-vanity-fair-hit-job-ashe-schow">reported</a>. That report included numerous errors and corrections and was unnecessary in the first place. Kavanaugh had already been confirmed, and so the article was simply a hit piece on his high school out of spite.
“She cited a school that didn’t exist, cars that were never driven, a quarterback that never played that position, and lots of other totally false items,” Patrick Coyle, director of Marketing &amp; Communications at Georgetown Prep, told The Daily Wire in a statement at the time. “And the magazine’s editors did zero fact checking with us. We could have straightened all those errors out and we had asked for the chance to respond but it seems like she just didn’t care. And if she can’t even get basic facts right like that or own up to the mistakes, then why should readers take anything she says seriously?”
Yet Vanity Fair is now trying to take the moral high ground on the Reade allegations.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Vanity Fair Passed On Tara Reade Story, Criticizes Conservative Media For Taking Her Seriously

Brett Kavanaugh

Joe Biden

Tara Reade

As 2020 kicks into gear, a series of focus groups involving &#8220;low-information voters&#8221; conducted by Barack Obama&#8217;s former speechwriter offer some deeply troubling — if at times hilarious — takeaways for Democrats.
The study, which involved focus groups in four different cities, was conducted late last year by Obama&#8217;s former speechwriter, Jon Favreau, for the second season of his Crooked Media-produced podcast &#8220;<a href="https://crooked.com/podcast-series/the-wilderness/">The Wilderness</a>.&#8221; Each focus group consisted of 10 voters with specific voting records: Philadelphia&#8217;s group of ten all voted for Hillary in 2016; Milwaukee&#8217;s group voted for Obama in 2012, flipped to Trump in 2016, then voted Democrat again in 2018;  the group in Miami was mostly black and Hispanic voters who voted for Obama in 2012, but either stayed home in 2016 or voted third party; and the Phoenix participants all flipped from Romney in 2012 to Clinton in 2016. All but the Phoenix group consisted of what politicos generally call &#8220;low-information voters.&#8221;
Vanity Fair&#8217;s <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/why-trump-has-huge-advantage-over-democrats-low-information-voters">Peter Hamby</a>, who spoke with Favreau about the focus groups, offers a rather devastating summary of what the podcaster leaned from the three &#8220;low-information&#8221; voters.
“I came away thinking that Trump may not be as big of a challenge as the cynicism and distrust that a lot of these voters have towards the entire political system and the media,” Favreau told Hamby. “Most of them don’t like Trump at all, but since politics hasn’t delivered for them in a tangible way, they’re starting to ignore the circus altogether, which makes them very hard to reach.”
Hamby points out that among the Democrats the low-information crowd named when asked about who they associate with the &#8220;Democratic Party,&#8221; only two of the current Democratic presidential candidates&#8217; names came up frequently: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Elizabeth Warren was named by just three people, while Pete Buttigieg&#8217;s name was cited by only one. Though respondents said they largely aligned with the Democratic Party on key issues, they also associated it with &#8220;infighting, taxes, socialism, ineptitude, and &#8216;too many candidates,'&#8221; Hamby notes.
Though most of the Democratic candidates appeared to be off most of their radars, Trump was &#8220;everywhere,&#8221; said Favreau. &#8220;I purposely waited to bring up Trump because I wanted to ask them about their thoughts on issues important to them and why they vote and what they think about government first,&#8221; he told Hamby. &#8220;But in almost every focus group, someone just brought up Trump almost immediately. He is everywhere, like a national psychic wound.&#8221;
While Favreau characterized Trump as inflicting trauma on everyone, he also admitted that while &#8220;none of them&#8221; liked him, they also weren&#8217;t thrilled about or committed to any of the Democrats and exhibited a deep distrust in the media. Hamby reports:
<blockquote>But even as they universally expressed displeasure with Trump, including the people who voted for him in Milwaukee but flipped in 2018, almost every participant told Favreau they wouldn’t yet commit to voting for the Democratic nominee in 2020. Some said it depends on who the nominee is. Others were open to voting for a third-party candidate instead of the Democrat. “None of them really like Trump, but they don’t have much love for Democratic politicians, Republican politicians, and especially the media, which they don’t trust at all,” Favreau said. “They really do see Trump as part of a broader political media culture that’s just out of control, silly, nasty, and not focused on what they care about.” A theme that surfaced again and again, not just about Democrats but about politics generally, was that the whole process is confusing, tedious, and off-putting—and that news organizations and social media do little to make sense of it.</blockquote>
Hamby also offers some rather humorous highlights of words and phrases the focus group participants associated with the top Democratic candidates:
<blockquote>In Milwaukee words that came to mind for Biden included “hugger,” “oil tycoon,” “cops,” and “old white money.” Six of the voters—all of whom had voted in the past two election cycles—responded with some variation of “nothing” or “I have nothing” when Biden was named. In Philadelphia the voters associated Biden with “crime bill,” “too old,” and “not fired up.” A grandmother and self-described “cat lady” named Jean said, “I heard he said a bad thing, I didn’t like it.” Biden elicited better reactions in Miami, where attendees said “Obama,” “experience,” and “well dressed” when the former vice president’s name was mentioned.
Sanders, too, was described as “too old” in all three cities, though many of the responses were, if not on message, at least message-adjacent. The Miami group associated Sanders with “crazy hair,” “grinny,” “free college,” and “wants to give away too many things for free.” The Philadelphia group said “your crazy uncle,” “health care,” “questionable health,” and “passionate hand talker.” In Milwaukee the Obama–Trump voters described Sanders as “for the people,” “crazy but in a good way,” “boisterous,” and “bold”—while three of the voters had no response to his name.</blockquote>
Warren inspired a few positive responses from people, including the words &#8220;energy&#8221; and &#8220;progressive,&#8221; but Favreau also noted that the participants &#8220;knew almost nothing about her,&#8221; Hamby notes. Buttigieg was almost totally unknown by any of the participants, one responding when asked about him, “Who dat?” (<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/why-trump-has-huge-advantage-over-democrats-low-information-voters">Read Hamby&#8217;s full piece for Vanity Fair here</a>.)
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/economists-have-bad-news-for-democrats-hoping-for-2020-recession-to-topple-trump">Experts Have Bad News For Democrats Hoping For 2020 Recession To Topple Trump</a>

Donald Trump Melania Trump

‘Low-Information Voters’ Study Offers Some Very Troubling, And Sometimes Hilarious, Results For Democrats

Bernie Sanders

Donald Trump

Elizabeth Warren

Pete Buttigieg

After Vanity Fair ran a puff piece on former Congressman Beto O&#8217;Rourke in which they posed him on their cover similar to a pose of President Ronald Reagan on a cover from Time magazine from yesteryear, one Twitter user noticed the similarity of poses and pictured the two covers side by side, prompting a hilarious response from Donald Trump Jr.: &#8220;Alpha meet Beta.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Alpha meet Beta. <a href="https://t.co/1eTC9qhVQR">https://t.co/1eTC9qhVQR</a>
&#8212; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1106659965710811140?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump Jr. knew as well as anyone there would be no doubt in anyone&#8217;s mind just who was &#8220;Alpha&#8221; and who was &#8220;Beta.&#8221; Just to compare the two men&#8217;s rhetoric reveals how vastly different the two men are, and looking at the hardscrabble roots that propelled Reagan to become one of the greatest presidents in American history while O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s navel-gazing, marrying into a multi-millionaire family story is a definite contrast.
But for the sake of clarity, here&#8217;s a comparison:
The straight-shooting of Reagan&#8217;s rhetoric:
<blockquote>
On government: &#8220;Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. Also: The most terrifying words in the English language are: I&#8217;m from the government and I&#8217;m here to help.&#8221;
On abortion: &#8220;I&#8217;ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.&#8221;
On God: &#8220;If we ever forget that we&#8217;re one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.&#8221;
On freedom in the United States: &#8220;Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn&#8217;t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children&#8217;s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.&#8221;
On Communism: &#8220;How do you tell a Communist? Well, it&#8217;s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It&#8217;s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.&#8221;
On national borders: &#8220;A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.&#8221;
On the economy: &#8220;Government&#8217;s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.&#8221;
</blockquote>
On the other hand, you have O&#8217;Rourke as a teenager, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44723/revealed-beto-orourke-wrote-fantasy-about-ryan-saavedra">reportedly writing</a>, &#8220;One day, as I was driving home from work, I noticed two children crossing the street. They were happy, happy to be free from their troubles &#8230;This happiness was mine by right. I had earned it in my dreams. As I neared the young ones, I put all my weight on my right foot, keeping the accelerator pedal on the floor until I heard the crashing of the two children on the hood, and then the sharp cry of pain from one of the two &#8230; I was so fascinated for a moment, that when after I had stopped my vehicle, I just sat in a daze, sweet visions filling my head.&#8221;
As a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44656/beto-last-november-i-wont-run-my-family-needs-me-hank-berrien">46-year old man</a>: &#8220;Have been stuck lately. In and out of a funk. Maybe if I get moving, on the road, meet people, learn about what&#8217;s going on where they live, have some adventure, go where I don&#8217;t know and I&#8217;m not known, it&#8217;ll clear my head.&#8221;
Even the left-leaning New Republic <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/153324/profound-emptiness-beto-orourke">said</a> of O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s writing, &#8220;O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s posts resemble sophomoric creative nonfiction. They&#8217;re maudlin, confusing the expression of emotion with profundity.&#8221;
O&#8217;Rourke grew up comfortably; his father Pat was a county commissioner and county judge in El Paso, Texas. At the age of 26 O&#8217;Rourke was arrested for drunk driving. He later married his wife, who is the daughter of a real estate tycoon <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2018/11/04/is-beto-orourkes-wife-really-a-billionaire-heiress-not-likely/#6e7b2915387f">worth a reported $500 million</a>.
Reagan was born to a poor family where his father was a salesman who was an alcoholic; Reagan recalled one time having to drag his father into the house from the snow. As a terrific swimmer as a young man, he served six years as a lifeguard near the dangerous Rock River. Research and newspaper reports testify that he saved 77 people from drowning.
There are numerous stories of Reagan&#8217;s toughness; Peggy Noonan <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/character/essays/reagan.html">recalled</a> 1981, after he had been shot and narrowly cheated death:
<blockquote>
He tried to walk into the hospital himself but his knees buckled and he had to be helped. They put him on a gurney, and soon he started the one-liners. Quoting Churchill, he reminded everyone that there&#8217;s nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at without effect. To Mrs. Reagan, it was, &#8220;Honey, I forgot to duck.&#8221; To the doctors, &#8220;I just hope you&#8217;re Republicans.&#8221; To which one doctor replied, &#8220;Today Mr. President we&#8217;re all Republicans.&#8221; Maybe he caught Reagan&#8217;s courage too.
</blockquote>
Here&#8217;s a sample from when he was governor of California:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kgle_7BhlHI" width="560"></iframe></div>
He was alpha, all right.

Vanity Fair Puts Beto On The Cover. Donald Trump Jr. Wrecks Them With One Tweet.

Beto O'Rourke

Ronald Reagan

We all remember the Fyre Festival, right? Nearly two years ago, rapper Ja Rule and a bunch of social media celebrities <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/15869/7-things-know-about-fyre-festival-debacle-aaron-bandler">promised rich millennials a luxury Coachella</a> in the Bahamas with gourmet meals and private cabanas.
What concert goers actually received was closer to disaster relief than luxury living. The &#8220;gourmet food&#8221; was just bread, cheese, and a salad. The private cabanas were tents with little-to-no electricity. Participants were provided private lockers, but apparently not told they needed to bring their own locks.
The whole episode was a disaster and perfect chance for social media mockery. It has since spawned two documentaries &#8212; one on Hulu and the other on Netflix &#8212; and now one of the festival&#8217;s producers, who became famous in one of the documentaries for offering blow jobs for water, might get his own TV show.
Andy King, an event producer, was featured in the Netflix documentary on Fyre Festival, titled &#8220;Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened.&#8221; Here&#8217;s how the Decider describes King&#8217;s involvement in the festival:
&#8220;During the SVOD feature, King revealed that founder Billy McFarland asked him to handle the negotiation of a fine from customs in the amount of $175,000, which if paid, would allow trucks full of Evian water to flow through customs.
When sh*t hits the fan, McFarland asks King to visit the Head of Customs and&#8230; &#8220;suck [his] dick&#8221; if he has to. King, who felt that there was no other solution, headed to the office prepared to perform the act of felatio, but was luckily spared the embarrassment by the customs official.
&#8220;I got into my car to drive across the island to take one for the team. And I got to [the customs officer&#8217;s] office, fully prepared to suck his dick,&#8221; he noted during the film, before revealing that the officer &#8220;couldn&#8217;t have been nicer&#8221; and literally just wanted the fine to be paid.&#8221;
For this, King, according to King, was offered his own TV show by three different &#8220;notable networks.&#8221;
King, in an interview with Vanity Fair, appears humbled and embarrassed by the inclusion of this story.
&#8220;When my great cameo came up, everybody just started clapping and cheering. And I just shrunk down in my seat, thinking, &#8216;Oh my word, is this what I&#8217;m going to be famous for?&#8217;&#8221; <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/02/fyre-festival-netflix-documentary-andy-king">he told VF</a>.
King also said that his story in the documentary was not meant to reflect an acceptance of sexual harassment in the workplace, but as an example of &#8220;just how crazy it was down there.&#8221; He emphasized that he is &#8220;a very conservative New Englander.&#8221;
He said his short cameo has gotten him offers from various water companies looking to cash in on the guy that would do literally anything for water, and from three networks.
&#8220;You see the attractiveness of HGTV today. People love Flip or Flop or Fixer Upper. Let&#8217;s just say it&#8217;s going to be a show about hosting crazy events&#8212;what it takes to make them happen. There will be cliff-hangers, and you&#8217;ll get to follow me around and see how I pull them off,&#8221; King said.

FAILING UP: Fyre Festival Producer Might Get His Own TV Show

Music

Months after Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, Vanity Fair decided to run yet another hit piece on him by going after his alma mater, Georgetown Prep.
Titled, &#8220;&#8216;Men For Others, My Ass,&#8217;: After Kavanaugh, Inside Georgetown Prep&#8217;s Culture Of Omerta,&#8221; the article details at length alleged bullying and drinking incidents that occurred at the school before and after Kavanaugh attended &#8212; incidents that could have occurred at any high school in America. The piece also describes a sexual abuse scandal involving a student and a priest that happened decades after Kavanaugh graduated.
The lengthy article already has three corrections. The original article claimed alumnus J.C. del Real was the school&#8217;s quarterback, but he was actually the tight end. It also claimed source Evie Shapiro &#8220;attended Potomac High School and went to Catholic University with [Mark] Judge.&#8221; Shapiro actually went to Churchill High School in Potomac, as there is no Potomac High School. She also attended the University of Maryland, not Catholic University.
Finally, the original article claimed &#8220;[a]ny female presence consisted of the librarian, the secretary in the president&#8217;s office, and perhaps two teachers.&#8221; It has since been updated to say &#8220;four teachers&#8221; during the 1982-1983 academic year. While this is an improvement it is still not entirely correct, according to <a href="https://www.gprep.org/about/alumni/georgetown-prep-statement">information from Georgetown Prep</a> provided exclusively first to The Daily Wire. There were actually 16 women serving on the staff during the 1982-1983 academic year, four of whom were faculty members.
&#8220;She cited a school that didn&#8217;t exist, cars that were never driven, a quarterback that never played that position, and lots of other totally false items,&#8221; Patrick Coyle, director of Marketing &amp; Communications at Georgetown Prep, told The Daily Wire in a statement. &#8220;And the magazine&#8217;s editors did zero fact checking with us. We could have straightened all those errors out and we had asked for the chance to respond but it seems like she just didn&#8217;t care. And if she can&#8217;t even get basic facts right like that or own up to the mistakes, then why should readers take anything she says seriously?&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.gprep.org/uploaded/Files_2018-19/Vanity_Fair_Response/EmailExchange_VF_FactChecker.pdf">only question</a> from a Vanity Fair fact checker involved information about the &#8220;Community of Concern&#8221; (more on that later). The additional information provided by Prep was not included in the final article.
These are far from the only errors in the article, yet emails between Prep and Vanity Fair author Evgenia Peretz show the concerns of Kavanaugh&#8217;s alma mater were ignored throughout the writing process. Here are the other errors in the article:
1. Peretz, along with New York Times reporter Kate Kelly (the same Kelly who just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38407/remember-reporters-who-smeared-brett-kavanaugh-ashe-schow">got a book deal</a> to trash Kavanaugh) attended a Prep alumni event (the school says they were not authorized to attend and didn&#8217;t identify themselves as reporters to security or school officials) and listened in on conversations. Kelly obtained an illegal (Maryland is a two-party consent state) recording of Prep President Rev. James R. Van Dyke, S.J., and cherry picked his remarks to make it appear as though he was referring to some code to protect the image of the school and alumni like Kavanaugh. &#8220;&#8230;the loyalty that you have had to each other, the way that you have looked after each other, and not just in the big stories but also a lot of small stories,&#8221; Peretz quoted him as saying. Left out was Van Dyke&#8217;s broader remarks referring to alumni with cancer or addiction. Van Dyke also &#8220;challenged the class to grow for and with others even beyond their circle of friends and to help those in need all over the world,&#8221; according to Prep.
2. While the article was originally presented to Prep as a look at the &#8216;80s, it included an allegation of sexual abuse by a priest against a student 15 years ago. The article claims the family of the victim, Eric Ruyak, says they first contacted the police. Prep provided Peretz with documentation showing the school contacted law enforcement on May 15, 2004, and said that if police had been contacted prior to then, the school should have been informed &#8212; which it wasn&#8217;t.
3. This same section of the article contemporaneously refers to &#8220;Father Gregory Eck,&#8221; yet Eck is not a priest, but an attorney who left the Jesuit order years ago.
4. The article includes the claim that prosecutors said Prep&#8217;s headmaster at the time of Ruyak&#8217;s allegations &#8220;dismissed the allegations as untrue.&#8221; Prep told Peretz in emails that the school conducted an internal investigation in October 2003 &#8220;in close consultation with Eric Ruyak&#8217;s parents who insisted we refrain from involving law enforcement authorities until a thorough review had been done.&#8221; Police did not charge the priest, Father Garrett Orr, but the Maryland Province Society of Jesus determined the allegations were &#8220;substantially true&#8221; and punished the priest.
5. The article claims an anonymous &#8220;alum&#8221; said members of the Prep administration reached out to him for the first time in years. &#8220;The overtures were friendly, but he interpreted the messages as reminder of the code,&#8221; Peretz wrote of the exchange. Prep said this statement is false, and that &#8220;[n]o members of the administration reached out to any alumni asking for support.&#8221; The only outreach was done via <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1emod-0qp0x7aGl-8txjh309nfaqkDv7N/view">community-wide letters from Van Dyke</a>.
6. The article claims that a reference in the 1983 Prep yearbook, &#8220;Gonzaga you&#8217;re lucky,&#8221; implied &#8220;that the Prep gang would have come to mess with the Gonzaga riffraff had the school not been surrounded by a ghetto.&#8221; The source for this claim is an unnamed &#8220;&#8217;83 Gonzaga graduate.&#8221; Members of Prep&#8217;s class of 1983, who were actually aware of the quote, said the reference was to Gonzaga winning a close football game in the fall of 1982.
7. The article also claims that at Mater Dei School, the all-boys elementary school Kavanaugh and some of his close friends attended, teachers &#8220;reported the class academic rankings on a chalkboard.&#8221; Prep contends that this only occurred in a math class.
8. This article contains the debunked claim that &#8220;Renate Alumni&#8221; &#8212; a reference in the 1983 yearbook &#8212; referred to &#8220;a girl from Stone Ridge whom the guys bragged about having sex with.&#8221; Kavanaugh and other Prep alumni refuted this assertion to the press and in sworn statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee. One alumni and friend of Kavanaugh <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38810/nyt-reporters-try-fail-explain-why-book-about-ashe-schow">previously told The Daily Wire</a> that the original author of the claim, Kate Kelly of the Times, twisted the meaning of the phrase to extract an &#8220;upset&#8221; quote from the woman named.
9. The article claims the students &#8220;were mostly the offspring of conservatives,&#8221; noting the exceptions of two Kennedys and two Shrivers. Prep points out the school has had &#8220;many prominent alumni in politics who were Democrats, including but not limited to Senator Chris Dodd D-CT (Class of &#8217;62) and Representative John Dingell, Jr. D-MI (Class of &#8217;44), the longest serving congressman in U.S. history.&#8221;
10. The article states that &#8220;in those days, only a handful were students of color,&#8221; while ignoring that the president of the student body in 1983 was African-American.
11. The article uses Maryland State Senator Richard Madaleno as a source, but fails to mention that he&#8217;s a Democrat and was opposed to Kavanaugh&#8217;s nomination from the beginning for partisan reasons.
12. The article mentions a group called &#8220;Community of Concern,&#8221; as if it is an outside group, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In reality, the group was created in the 1990s by a parent at Prep, and the school has yearly events from the group about the dangers of alcohol and drug use. Prep detailed this to Peretz and her fact-checker, Brendan Barr, in emails, but those details were omitted from the final article.
13. The article notes that Eric Ruyak&#8217;s father was the son of a board member, but omits the fact that his father was the Board vice-chair and then chairman. Even after Ruyak&#8217;s allegations, his father, Robert, told The Washington Post that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/former-priest-put-on-probation-for-fondling-two-georgetown-prep-students/2011/11/10/gIQAHYkz9M_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.e47d369548f0">he still supports Georgetown Prep as an institution</a>. Eric&#8217;s younger brother enrolled at the school even after the allegations.
In her initial outreach to Georgetown Prep, Peretz claimed her article would be about Kavanaugh&#8217;s &#8220;social milieu in the early 1980s, and how alumni of Georgetown Prep and other schools, as well as others in the community at large, are looking back at the culture 35 years later.&#8221; She claimed she wanted to present &#8220;a clear-eyed, nuanced view of the situation&#8221; and wanted her article &#8220;to be as fair, and as complete, as possible.&#8221;
Prep, understandably skeptical considering the heaps of negative press piled on the school after Kavanaugh was accused of sexually assaulting a woman as a teenager, asked for specific criticisms and more details about what was to go into the piece. Prep&#8217;s Patrick Coyle mentioned up front how &#8220;many media outlets withheld key information&#8221; from the school &#8220;which then gave readers the false impression that we had nothing to say about those particulars when they appeared in print.&#8221; Coyle asked for assurances that the school would be made aware of any assertions and be provided with a &#8220;full and fair opportunity to respond.&#8221; Peretz responded, saying they would &#8220;certainly&#8221; have such an opportunity.
What followed was <a href="https://www.gprep.org/uploaded/Files_2018-19/Vanity_Fair_Response/VanityFairEmailExchange.pdf">a series of emails</a>, provided by Georgetown Prep, which show Peretz not only ignored repeated requests for specific allegations, but kept giving Prep short deadlines to research decades old claims. Further, much of the information provided to Peretz was not included in the Vanity Fair article, instead only including generic parenthetical notes that Prep denied various claims.
For example, her first set of questions for Prep provides only the following vague allegations from unnamed sources about other unnamed people:
<blockquote>
Two alums from the 80s said that during football camp, some of the priests drank with the students. One alum told me that one of the coaches invited seniors to his bachelor party where they was [sic] drinking and strippers. Is this accurate and were there any consequence?
</blockquote>
Coyle responded, saying the allegations were about &#8220;specific incidents of misconduct,&#8221; but he didn&#8217;t know who was making the claims or how the sourcing was corroborated.
Coyle followed his specific responses to Peretz with concerns that that these would not be the only criticisms the school was asked to address.
In another example, Peretz asked Coyle for response to the claim that two teachers, Stephen Ochs and Julie Collins, attempted to portray Eric Ruyak as a liar and attempted to get him expelled. She claimed she was told the two teachers sent a letter to the community disparaging Ruyak. When she looked over the letter, it was not from these two teachers, nor did it disparage Ruyak. Still she continued to question Coyle about the teachers, claiming they pushed for Ruyak&#8217;s expulsion and started a vicious rumor (that did not receive mention in the article). Peretz also claimed the teachers had previously brought forward concerns about Father Orr&#8217;s &#8220;boundary issues,&#8221; yet in a corroborating document sent to Prep, the quote was from a prosecutor, not the teachers. Coyle also stated: &#8220;The School has no record of Dr. Ochs or Ms. Collins making any claims or communicating any concerns about Orr to school administration.&#8221; In the final article, the assertions from the Ruyaks are laid out without question, even though Coyle was able to demonstrate to the magazine numerous inaccuracies. The only pushback to the claims was a short parenthetical, &#8220;(The school says it has &#8216;no record&#8217; of any such concern.)&#8221;
After a few more specifics from Peretz and repeated requests from Coyle to see the full list of questions, Peretz on December 3, 2018 (nearly a month after she initially contacted the school about its 80&#8217;s culture) now asked about the Ruyak allegations from 2003 &#8212; 20 years after Kavanaugh graduated.
Coyle pointed out how this had nothing to do with the 1980s or the &#8220;media circus&#8221; surrounding the school during the Kavanaugh hearing.
&#8220;I have to say, it&#8217;s starting to appear as though you are aiming to gather any disparagements ever made about Georgetown Prep, no matter how tangential. That&#8217;s hardly the &#8216;fair&#8230;clear-eyed, nuanced view of the situation [that presents] much support for Georgetown Prep&#8217; that you assured us when you initially reached out,&#8221; Coyle said.
After several more days of back-and-forth emails, Coyle laid out the interactions with the magazine thus far, on December 6, to show how the school attempted to cooperate.
&#8220;We asked you for a chance to hear any criticizing quotes or characterizations specifically made about us by sources and you have presented only paraphrased allegations almost entirely from unnamed sources. In our response to your set of questions about several reported incidents from years ago and school procedures, we asked if that represented the full range of points aimed at Georgetown Prep. But, although we have repeated that question to you several times now, you have ignored it, despite your promise we &#8216;would certainly have an opportunity to [hear] the assertions made about the school,&#8217;&#8221; Coyle wrote.
Peretz responded with more questions regarding criticism of the school, which Coyle continued to answer.
After a Daily Wire inquiry, Vanity Fair provided the following statement, but did not answer numerous, specific questions asked by this author:
<blockquote>
Vanity Fair stands behind Evgenia Peretz&#8217;s reporting on Georgetown Prep, which remains entirely consistent with the journalistic integrity the magazine is known for. Georgetown Prep, as it notes in its own response, was given extensive opportunity to respond to specific and detailed queries that arose during the course of reporting. Its replies were taken into consideration during our rigorous fact-checking process, and in a number of instances were included directly in the story.
</blockquote>

Here’s Everything That’s Wrong With The Vanity Fair Hit Job On Brett Kavanaugh’s Alma Mater

It&#8217;s rare that a left-leaning publication is willing to be honest about anything to do with Donald Trump &#8212; particularly regarding the investigation the Left is desperately hoping will finally take him down &#8212; but Vanity Fair summoned up the courage this week to publish a piece that acknowledges a bunch of things about the &#8220;Russia collusion&#8221; probe that most &#8220;Trump-haters&#8221; can&#8217;t bring themselves to utter aloud.
In an op-ed for Vanity Fair&#8217;s The Hive published Monday, T.A. Franks provides &#8220;<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-trump-haters-guide-to-mueller-skepticism">A Trump-Hater&#8217;s Guide To Mueller Skepticism</a>&#8221; that ends up asking the question so many on the Right have been asking repeatedly in recent weeks: &#8220;Is this it?&#8221; Franks sets the dramatic scene of what are reportedly the final days of the seemingly interminable Mueller investigation:
<blockquote>
For many Robert Mueller watchers, the air these days is electric. People sense the big shoes are about to drop. <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/people/donald-trump#intcid=dt-hot-link">Donald Trump</a> has submitted his written answers to Mueller&#8217;s questions. Paul Manafort has entered a plea agreement, but then continued to lie&#8212;at least according to Mueller. Jerome Corsi, fringe-right author and personality, is vowing to go to jail for life rather than sign on to Mueller&#8217;s version of events. Roger Stone is expecting to be indicted for something. <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/donald-trump-jr-expecting-to-be-indicted-by-mueller-soon.html">So is</a> Donald Trump Jr. And, most significant of all to those looking for a big payoff, Michael Cohen has <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/29/michael-cohen-guilty-plea-reveals-trump-team-lies-russia-contacts-column/2154102002/">pleaded guilty</a> to lying to Congress about the timeline of a deal he was trying to make to construct a 100-story Trump-branded tower in Moscow. It turns out that the deal exploration continued past the time Trump had secured the Republican nomination, and Cohen and his associate Felix Sater, a real-estate promoter and one-time racketeer, had even discussed giving <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/people/vladimir-putin#intcid=dt-hot-link">Vladimir Putin</a> a $50 million penthouse in the building. &#8220;This is it,&#8221; people are saying. &#8220;This is the big one!&#8221;
</blockquote>
The problem, Franks writes, is that after everyone comes down from this &#8220;familiar cycle of hype,&#8221; the same nagging question pops up again: &#8220;So what?&#8221;
<blockquote>
Some of the news, such as a Guardian story that Manafort met three times with Julian Assange, seems to be based on nothing at all. But even the solid news turns out to be generally non-earth-shattering. As the journalist Aaron Maté has been <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1068523864475353088">pointing out</a>, we already knew the timeline of Cohen&#8217;s Moscow efforts, because BuzzFeed had already <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/anthonycormier/trump-moscow-micheal-cohen-felix-sater-campaign#.qsjw6jmX">detailed</a> them in May, painting a picture of a bumbling duo getting high on their own supply. (As for the latest revelations, did Sater and Cohen really think a president of Russia would move into a free $50 million penthouse provided by a U.S. presidential candidate? You have to wonder if they were hitting each other on the head with bricks.) Those who hope that Mueller reveals a shambolic operation with a lot of rascals engaged in sleazy and embarrassing behavior will be happy with the fruits of his labors. But those who hope for an unveiling of indictments linking Putin and Trump in a grand conspiracy have no more reason to celebrate than they did a week or a month ago.
</blockquote>
The point is, where&#8217;s the evidence of the insidious conspiracy that &#8220;stole&#8221; the election from the &#8220;inevitable&#8221; Hillary Clinton? Where&#8217;s all that &#8220;collusion&#8221;? Where&#8217;s something that&#8217;s even criminal on Trump&#8217;s part?
<blockquote>
Certainly, Trump&#8217;s ethical standards are low, but if sleaziness were a crime then many more people from our ruling class would be in jail. It is sleazy, but not criminal, to try to find out in advance what WikiLeaks has on <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/people/hillary-clinton#intcid=dt-hot-link">Hillary Clinton</a>. It is sleazy, but not criminal, to take a meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer promising a dossier of dirt on Clinton. (Just as, it should be mentioned, it is sleazy, but not criminal, to pay a guy to go to Russia to put together a dossier of dirt on Trump. This is one reason why the Clinton campaign <a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/922962880206647297?">lied</a> about its connection to the Steele dossier, albeit without the disadvantage of being under oath.) It is sleazy, but not criminal, to pursue a business deal while you&#8217;re running for president. Mueller has nailed people for trying to prevaricate about their sleaze, so we already have a couple of guilty pleas over perjury, with more believed to be on the way. But the purpose of the investigation was to address suspicions of underlying conspiracy&#8212;that is, a plan by Trump staffers to get Russian help on a criminal effort. Despite countless man-hours of digging, this conspiracy theory, the one that&#8217;s been paying the bills at Maddow for a couple of years now, has come no closer to being borne out. (Or, as the true believers would say, at least not yet.)
</blockquote>
Esteemed Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, a self-described &#8220;liberal&#8221; who has frequently defended Trump over the last year, has likewise asked his own versions of &#8220;Is this it?&#8221; in his recent television appearances.
&#8220;I think the weakness of Mueller&#8217;s substantive findings are suggested by the fact that he has to resort to false statement prosecutions, which really shows that he didn&#8217;t start with very much, and that the very fact that he&#8217;s conducting an investigation has created these crimes,&#8221; he <a href="https://youtu.be/5GePLDX-l-8">said</a> on Fox News Thursday in response to Michael Cohen&#8217;s big plea deal. &#8220;These are not crimes that had been committed prior to his appointment, they&#8217;re crimes that were committed as the result of his appointment, and that raises some questions about the role of special prosecutors in creating crimes, or creating opportunities for crimes to be committed. &#8230; In the end, I don&#8217;t think Mueller&#8217;s going to come up with very much, in terms of criminal conduct, that existed before he was appointed, and that&#8217;s pretty shocking.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38878/limbaugh-heres-what-media-wants-you-forget-about-james-barrett">Limbaugh: Here&#8217;s What The Media Wants You To Forget About &#8216;Russia Collusion&#8217;</a>

Vanity Fair Summarizes All The Problems With The Mueller Investigation Trump Critics Don’t Want To Admit

Alan Dershowitz

Robert Mueller

Russia

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