Trumpen Hooker

Donald Trump LOOOOVES fake news. He loves conspiracy theories, gossip, rumors, and dirty lies. He peddles them, he tweets them, he finances them, and he bases his entire campaign off them.

The liberal website Think Progress has an article describing 12 conspiracy theories Trump has embraced. The site Alternet went even farther and reported on 58.

He’s pushed lies from right wing websites such as Breitbart to gossip from the National Enquirer ranging from birtherism, Ted Cruz’s father being in on the JFK assassination, to Hillary suffering some super secret health issue. Earlier this week he took issue with the MSNBC program Morning Joe and tweeted that hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were secret lovers.

So it’s a bit hypocritical that Trump’s wife has hired lawyers to send out threatening letters to news outlets regarding rumors that she worked as an escort when she first arrived to the United States.

The Daily Mail, The Week(UK), Politico, Inquisitr, Tarpley, Before It’s News, Liberal America, LawNewz, Winning Democrats and Bipartisan Report have all received threats of lawsuits from the same lawyers who sued Gawker over a Hulk Hogan sex tape. I haven’t even heard of some of those outlets.

A few of those outlets such as Politico and The Week were focusing on questions over Melania’s immigration status when she first arrived to the United States in the 1990s and they mentioned the hooker allegations. Some of the other sites gleefully went to town over the rumors of Mrs. Trump working on her back which is really unfair, because if she did have a career in prostitution we really don’t know what sexual positions she employed.

Now I really don’t expect Melania’s Hulk Hogan lawyers to come after me. I’m just an itty bitty, microscopic, rapscallion political cartoonist that’s barely a blemish on the grand face of American journalism. I haven’t even been able to get an angry response or insult from Trump on Twitter and that makes me very sad. Though it would be kinda cool to get the national attention of a legal threat, the accusations of Melania working as an escort don’t pass the smell test. They’re not credible or substantiated. Darn. I haven’t even attracted hackers.

I have not read anything credible that proves Melania Trump ever performed sexual favors for money before she married Donald Trump.

My cartoons run in The Week and occasionally Politico gives me some love. Last year the site Liberal America, which was threatened by Melania’s lawyers, ran my work. It doesn’t surprise me they made the list as their ethics have been questionable and it’s the reason my cartoons are not on their site anymore. I pointed out to them that they can’t be a credible or respectable news site if they kept using work by writers and reporters who used pseudonyms. Their immediate response was to end our business relationship which was fine and their right. I was too amused by their insecurity and hurt feelings to be angry over it and I never published anything about it until now.

Back to the Melania issue: Legitimate news sites, even opinion sites, should not debase themselves to take up the pond scumming habits of the likes of Breitbart, even without the threats of lawsuits. Besides, Donald Trump really doesn’t like it when you act like Donald Trump.

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