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#BASTA: How a Web of Deception, Lies, and a Porn Star Triggered the Spiral Downfall of the Donald Trump
#Basta is a hashtag introduced by Mr. Michael Avenatti the Attorney for Stephanie Clifford AKA Stormy Daniels via his tweets. Basta is an Italian and Spanish word which in English, means ‘Enough! Stop!’
Who is Stormy Daniels and what does she want with President Donald Trump? Why is the President being sued and why is his presidency at stake? $130K is a huge amount of money to be offered to a porn star by the President’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, but why?
Daniels claimed she had an affair with Trump after the two met at the American Century VIP golf competition in July 2006. That end of the week, as indicated by Daniels's, the two had consensual sex in Trump's hotel room. They kept on staying in contact through 2007, since Trump had offered to have Daniels go along with him on NBC's The Apprentice (an appearance that did not occur). Trump, whose spouse Melania had brought forth their child months before the asserted sexual experience, has denied that any illicit relationship occurred.
In this book you, will learn how a Porn Star, Jennifer Clifford AKA Stormy Daniels, was able to stand up to the political state gaining unprecedented headlines by suing the President of the United States with the help of a skilled, well prepared
and aggressive attorney, Michael Avenatti. They have been able to shake Donald Trump’s presidency and his personal attorney Michael Cohen, exposing their lies and corruption, cooperating with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller and seeking to depose the president.
Who is Stormy Daniels and what does she want with President Donald Trump? Why is the President being sued and why is his presidency at stake? $130K is a huge amount of money to be offered to a porn star by the President’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, but why?
Daniels claimed she had an affair with Trump after the two met at the American Century VIP golf competition in July 2006. That end of the week, as indicated by Daniels's, the two had consensual sex in Trump's hotel room. They kept on staying in contact through 2007, since Trump had offered to have Daniels go along with him on NBC's The Apprentice (an appearance that did not occur). Trump, whose spouse Melania had brought forth their child months before the asserted sexual experience, has denied that any illicit relationship occurred.
In this book you, will learn how a Porn Star, Jennifer Clifford AKA Stormy Daniels, was able to stand up to the political state gaining unprecedented headlines by suing the President of the United States with the help of a skilled, well prepared
and aggressive attorney, Michael Avenatti. They have been able to shake Donald Trump’s presidency and his personal attorney Michael Cohen, exposing their lies and corruption, cooperating with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller and seeking to depose the president.
115 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 8, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 19, 2018
The author has made her broad research homework, just the birth date of Donald Trump appears as an unexpected material mistake. There are some minor typos, and, as for me, it just doesn’t matter.
I must praise her attempt to refer the facts in a balanced way. She only makes us understand she is full of doubts about President Trump and the possible early conclusion of his presidency, as we all are, all over the world.
I also feel grateful to her, for having brought some real-life echoes of USA political struggle to the readers.
So far so good.
However, some of my legitimate, I believe, expectations as a reader were not satisfied.
Against my will and to my disappointment I have to give three stars to the book because of the following three reasons.
Fading actuality
All the Trump man’s biography, the detailed analysis of the facts and accomplishments during the first 100 days of the presidency may be considered informative but, those facts have a relevance quickly fading with time because the political sentiment is one of quick evolution. They turn to be of little momentum at present, even though the book publication was only a few months ago.
So, unluckily, the time is working against a book which has its strength in the exposition of current events, that are already fading into past.
As for the part regarding the old relationship of President Trump with Stormy Daniels, the reasoning is, otherwise, different.
A bulk of data used for what?
The book shows to miss something when it comes to drawing conclusions about the actual political effects of the Stormy Daniels affair and making some forecast about the near future of Trump’s presidency.
The book contains lots of data, even though not freshly updated, but a fragile processing method, consisting in merely organizing and representing them to the reader, which doesn’t produce a final result distinguishable from the data themselves.
Not only it doesn’t prove any “theorem”, an overtly impossible challenge, but doesn’t even expresses a personal opinion, a likely hypothesis or a tentative theory.
In the end, the promise implied in the title, showing that Trump’s presidency is doomed because of sexual scandals, isn’t maintained.
There is, to be honest, one frank opinion that the author expresses about the objective of Attorney M. Avenatty and his client.
“Michael Avenatti has a goal in the horizon, the same goal his client, Stormy Daniel, seeks. To get to the bottom of this and lay down the truth for the American People.”
I think, otherwise, that their objective is much more prosaic, but this hadn’t any influence on my rating.
One neglected political and social hot core
I also expected more courage and insight in digging some of the, let’s say, less time-dependent propellers of the present political trajectory of the USA, more than depicting with detail a lot of facts, that are all, more or less impacting the image of Trump as a person and weakening his leadership as a President.
I mean strong ideal cores that are acting to drive the USA public opinion and the resulting politics, that is, influencing the most important reality of the planet, not nuts!
Well, don’t misunderstand me: I wasn’t expecting Ms. Serrano to come out, among the crowd of political commenters, with a magical, complete and consistent explanation of the unbelievable in action.
I recognize that this is beyond the declared aim of the book.
However, one specific political and hot social core, tightly tied with the book's theme, was right there and it’s been just mildly touched, without a visible effort to analyze it under the factual surface. I’m talking of the #metoo movement which, at the time of the book publishing, had already promoted a widespread and robust campaign through all the main media.
From the title, and also under the influence of several episodes happening in the political scene of the USA, I thought to find here, at least, an attempt to express a fair judgment about the #metoo opinion movement, from the perspective of a woman.
A judgment that genuinely interested me, but I wasn’t satisfied. Maybe, at that time, the author couldn’t identify this as an essential objective to pursue with her book.
Looking forward to a new edition
Since the show is still going on, I would like to see a next edition of the book – to be published maybe after the mid-term elections of November – in which the author might have a better opportunity, and the will, to express a more insightful opinion. Also, and mainly, on the #metoo campaign and on the political results that it might have produced by then.
The #metoo campaign not only appears at present as the most effective and swiftly actionable weapon in the hands of the Politically correct opinion movement opposing Trump but also, and sadly, a strong inspirer of hate and distrust between the genders, all among the ordinary people. Hate, moreover, growing even harsher among the women of the African American community, already regretful because of the undeniable white “supremacist” roots of the Trumpism.
Apart from allowing or not allowing (we will see after November) the Politically Correct movement to obtain a tangible political result at midterm, it is a fact that the #metoo campaign is mostly contributing to making harsher an already nasty climate of hate pervading the public opinion. Worse, it is pushing in the deprecated direction of dividing the people into many opposite factions.
As if it wasn’t already enough having blacks against whites, Christians against Muslims, gun fans against gun haters, poor people against rich people, hard workers against financial gamblers, and more, now, thanks to the #metoo campaign, with a single magic touch the total number of opposite factions is readily doubled!
Congratulations to the Politically Correct opinion movement: a great achievement!
Also considering, and here I stop restraining from personally biased judgments, that in the #metoo campaign the 90% of the claimed abuses were merely consensual transactions, happened decades ago, between a lust blinded, self-centered alfa man and a beautiful, more or less covert, more or less top-class woman for sale. Woman for sale is here used to mean a woman selling her favors for money or other personal advantages in goods or career.
Some social network's groups have already sanctioned me for having expressed wittingly this my opinion, but I still proudly stand with it.
Voltaire said: “To know who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
If I had to post it on Amazon, my review would end here.
Only for the supposedly more thoughtful Goodreads users, I will add a few lines of reflection and clarification.
I’m far from pushing my opinion about the #metoo campaign as any political, social, philosophical or, less than ever, religious truth.
I amply recognize that my judgment, not less than everybody else’s is biased, and I list here the possible sources of my bias.
I am a male, white, not Catholic nor religious anyhow, a hard worker but an intellectual one, a widower with two children in their twenties, not much of a proud European as far as Europe is what it is and will be what's in mind of Ms. Merkel or of Monsieur Macron, and I'm an Italian.
I am aware that the number of persons similar to me is an infinitesimal fraction of the earth’s population, and those who may think like me are even less than that. However, I stand by my opinion, as far as somebody won’t convince me of something different.
Dear Ms. Serrano, my five stars are ready for you the next time you will dare say some more from your point of view, even though to dismiss and refute, respectfully, of course, my opinions.
I know it is difficult to have the courage to say our opinion frankly.
I confess I didn’t have that courage with my last more socially thoughtful and controversial book, and I preferred to present it elsewhere and with a stranger pen name, even at the cost of many different problems. So, you would be right, in your turn to rank me three stars because of that.
I must praise her attempt to refer the facts in a balanced way. She only makes us understand she is full of doubts about President Trump and the possible early conclusion of his presidency, as we all are, all over the world.
I also feel grateful to her, for having brought some real-life echoes of USA political struggle to the readers.
So far so good.
However, some of my legitimate, I believe, expectations as a reader were not satisfied.
Against my will and to my disappointment I have to give three stars to the book because of the following three reasons.
Fading actuality
All the Trump man’s biography, the detailed analysis of the facts and accomplishments during the first 100 days of the presidency may be considered informative but, those facts have a relevance quickly fading with time because the political sentiment is one of quick evolution. They turn to be of little momentum at present, even though the book publication was only a few months ago.
So, unluckily, the time is working against a book which has its strength in the exposition of current events, that are already fading into past.
As for the part regarding the old relationship of President Trump with Stormy Daniels, the reasoning is, otherwise, different.
A bulk of data used for what?
The book shows to miss something when it comes to drawing conclusions about the actual political effects of the Stormy Daniels affair and making some forecast about the near future of Trump’s presidency.
The book contains lots of data, even though not freshly updated, but a fragile processing method, consisting in merely organizing and representing them to the reader, which doesn’t produce a final result distinguishable from the data themselves.
Not only it doesn’t prove any “theorem”, an overtly impossible challenge, but doesn’t even expresses a personal opinion, a likely hypothesis or a tentative theory.
In the end, the promise implied in the title, showing that Trump’s presidency is doomed because of sexual scandals, isn’t maintained.
There is, to be honest, one frank opinion that the author expresses about the objective of Attorney M. Avenatty and his client.
“Michael Avenatti has a goal in the horizon, the same goal his client, Stormy Daniel, seeks. To get to the bottom of this and lay down the truth for the American People.”
I think, otherwise, that their objective is much more prosaic, but this hadn’t any influence on my rating.
One neglected political and social hot core
I also expected more courage and insight in digging some of the, let’s say, less time-dependent propellers of the present political trajectory of the USA, more than depicting with detail a lot of facts, that are all, more or less impacting the image of Trump as a person and weakening his leadership as a President.
I mean strong ideal cores that are acting to drive the USA public opinion and the resulting politics, that is, influencing the most important reality of the planet, not nuts!
Well, don’t misunderstand me: I wasn’t expecting Ms. Serrano to come out, among the crowd of political commenters, with a magical, complete and consistent explanation of the unbelievable in action.
I recognize that this is beyond the declared aim of the book.
However, one specific political and hot social core, tightly tied with the book's theme, was right there and it’s been just mildly touched, without a visible effort to analyze it under the factual surface. I’m talking of the #metoo movement which, at the time of the book publishing, had already promoted a widespread and robust campaign through all the main media.
From the title, and also under the influence of several episodes happening in the political scene of the USA, I thought to find here, at least, an attempt to express a fair judgment about the #metoo opinion movement, from the perspective of a woman.
A judgment that genuinely interested me, but I wasn’t satisfied. Maybe, at that time, the author couldn’t identify this as an essential objective to pursue with her book.
Looking forward to a new edition
Since the show is still going on, I would like to see a next edition of the book – to be published maybe after the mid-term elections of November – in which the author might have a better opportunity, and the will, to express a more insightful opinion. Also, and mainly, on the #metoo campaign and on the political results that it might have produced by then.
The #metoo campaign not only appears at present as the most effective and swiftly actionable weapon in the hands of the Politically correct opinion movement opposing Trump but also, and sadly, a strong inspirer of hate and distrust between the genders, all among the ordinary people. Hate, moreover, growing even harsher among the women of the African American community, already regretful because of the undeniable white “supremacist” roots of the Trumpism.
Apart from allowing or not allowing (we will see after November) the Politically Correct movement to obtain a tangible political result at midterm, it is a fact that the #metoo campaign is mostly contributing to making harsher an already nasty climate of hate pervading the public opinion. Worse, it is pushing in the deprecated direction of dividing the people into many opposite factions.
As if it wasn’t already enough having blacks against whites, Christians against Muslims, gun fans against gun haters, poor people against rich people, hard workers against financial gamblers, and more, now, thanks to the #metoo campaign, with a single magic touch the total number of opposite factions is readily doubled!
Congratulations to the Politically Correct opinion movement: a great achievement!
Also considering, and here I stop restraining from personally biased judgments, that in the #metoo campaign the 90% of the claimed abuses were merely consensual transactions, happened decades ago, between a lust blinded, self-centered alfa man and a beautiful, more or less covert, more or less top-class woman for sale. Woman for sale is here used to mean a woman selling her favors for money or other personal advantages in goods or career.
Some social network's groups have already sanctioned me for having expressed wittingly this my opinion, but I still proudly stand with it.
Voltaire said: “To know who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
If I had to post it on Amazon, my review would end here.
Only for the supposedly more thoughtful Goodreads users, I will add a few lines of reflection and clarification.
I’m far from pushing my opinion about the #metoo campaign as any political, social, philosophical or, less than ever, religious truth.
I amply recognize that my judgment, not less than everybody else’s is biased, and I list here the possible sources of my bias.
I am a male, white, not Catholic nor religious anyhow, a hard worker but an intellectual one, a widower with two children in their twenties, not much of a proud European as far as Europe is what it is and will be what's in mind of Ms. Merkel or of Monsieur Macron, and I'm an Italian.
I am aware that the number of persons similar to me is an infinitesimal fraction of the earth’s population, and those who may think like me are even less than that. However, I stand by my opinion, as far as somebody won’t convince me of something different.
Dear Ms. Serrano, my five stars are ready for you the next time you will dare say some more from your point of view, even though to dismiss and refute, respectfully, of course, my opinions.
I know it is difficult to have the courage to say our opinion frankly.
I confess I didn’t have that courage with my last more socially thoughtful and controversial book, and I preferred to present it elsewhere and with a stranger pen name, even at the cost of many different problems. So, you would be right, in your turn to rank me three stars because of that.
September 13, 2018
#BASTA is a trip down memory lane in Trumpistan, USA, and it feels like ancient history as it ends in April 2018, even though that was merely five months ago. This non-fiction work recounts events relating to Donald Trump at the headline level and breaks no new information, yet it is a refreshing reminder of the myriad of seemingly unrelated episodes that orbit around the mysterious black hole of American politics. A largely dispassionate review of the prurient, the policies, the political appointments, the ploys, and the performance of Trump’s presidency, #BASTA is a primer for those who haven’t followed the news over the past two years. Emerging in the wake of Fire and Fury, Russian Roulette, A Higher Loyalty, and Fear, this book promises to explain “How a Web of Deception, Lies, and a Porn Star Triggered the Spiral Downfall of the Donald Trump,” but alas, it provides little explanation, beneath the facts, of how things might end.
I gave this book 3 stars because its message is too ambitious, attempting to cover the here-to-fore unexplained and to predict the unpredictable, and it concludes with the very same questions that we all ask ourselves every single day. Perhaps a prelude to a sequel or an introduction to a full analysis, #BASTA could be revised (as the story continues to progress) to provide an outsider’s view of the state of American politics with a fresh perspective that offers something surprising and insightful.
I gave this book 3 stars because its message is too ambitious, attempting to cover the here-to-fore unexplained and to predict the unpredictable, and it concludes with the very same questions that we all ask ourselves every single day. Perhaps a prelude to a sequel or an introduction to a full analysis, #BASTA could be revised (as the story continues to progress) to provide an outsider’s view of the state of American politics with a fresh perspective that offers something surprising and insightful.
June 29, 2019
The author has written a book filled with the accusations and news reports of President Donald Trump. The story that is created is an interesting one. It did make me think and the author must have done a lot of research to gather this information. We will have to see if the downward spiral of the President occurs because I have seen it thus far?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews