Vanity Fair: ‘How NYC’s Richest Socialites Were Scammed By Anna Delvey’

Source:Vanity Fair– Great question!

Source:The Daily Review 

“Anna Delvey finagled her way into the world of New York City’s elite class with seamless ease. That is, until it all came falling apart.”

From Vanity Fair

If you’re familiar with The Billionaire Boys Club that was lead by Joe Hunt in the early and mid 1980s that was based on Los Angeles, the Anna Delvey story should sound familiar. Except that Anna Delvey was not an investor not even a fake investor like the BBC and Delvey hasn’t murdered and spending the rest of her life in prison. What’s she’s apparently guilty of is scamming rich New Yorkers out of their money. Looks like she was supporting herself by just hanging out and partying with rich New Yorkers. With not a real job or income of her own.

Source:The Cut– Anna Delvey 

What she does have in common with Joe Hunt and the BBC is this need to be seen with what’s known as the beautiful people. Very attractive, sexy successful, hip yuppies in New York who have the best of everything when it comes to material. The best looking and most expensive clothing, best homes, cars, go to the best restaurants, hang out and party with the most popular people, as is she’s part of this crowd and his also a very successful yuppie in New York as well. When the fact the only thing she has in common with these people is a need to be seen living this lifestyle with these people. But someone on her own would struggle to pay for gas in her car and pay for a motel room at the Motel Six or some other place. Perhaps Bob’s Motel and Diner in New Brunswick, New Jersey or whatever the location.

Source:The Cut– Anna Delvey on the right and a friend? 

The main problem that Ann Delvey had is that she had first class expensive taste, but with an income that couldn’t even pay for a coach seat. The way she paid for her first class lifestyle was by convincing some I guess some seriously gullible New Yorkers that she was also very successful and wealthy on her own. Perhaps these people believe in Santa Clause as well and not sure about who murdered President John Kennedy. You would think people for their educational and professional backgrounds, would be smart enough to not get fooled by someone like this. And just see her as a wannabe celebrity party girl, groupie ( to use another term ) and just blow her off, but that didn’t happen here.

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Politics and Prose: David Cay Johnston- ‘It’s Even Worse Than You Think’

Source:Politics & Prose– author David Cay Johnston at Politics & Prose in Washington.

Source:The New Democrat

“David Cay Johnston discusses his book, “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” at Politics and Prose on 1/24/18.

Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, has been covering Trump since 1988. In June 2015, he was the first national journalist to write about a possible Trump presidency and in his 2016 bestselling The Making of Donald Trump he gave a comprehensive account of Trump’s business practices, associates, and family background. Now Johnston follows up that profile with a detailed analysis of the Trump administration’s first one hundred days. He shows how Trump’s policies are affecting ordinary people’s jobs, finances, and security, explains the federal agencies charged with carrying out Trump’s executive actions, and illuminates places where the system can hide what’s really going on.”

From Politics & Prose

I agree with David C. Johnston that Donald Trump is not the disease in American politics, but a symptom. His presidency is an example of what can happen when Americans are literally so pissed off about American politics, American politicians, the lobbyists that they actually represent instead of the everyday American voters who work very hard for their living and proud of that.

Not just Independents but Democrats voted for Donald Trump. Far-Left-Wing Democrats and third-party voters who voted for Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries for President, voted for Nationalist Republican Donald Trump for President. Who came out in favor of banning Muslims from entering America and a huge border wall that is supposed to be about two-thousand miles along and cover the entire American-Mexican border, even though no one actually believes that is even possible to accomplish let alone will ever happen, except for Donald Trump’s Far-Right Breitbart Fox News voters. Even Donald Trump knows enough about immigration to know his wall won’t ever happen, but he’s also smart enough to know that his base doesn’t know that.

Think about that for a second: Socialists voting for a right-wing Nationalist for President, even though they had Green Party Socialist candidate Jill Stein, as an option to vote for President.

Donald Trump for all of his weaknesses and lack of knowledge about everything other than how to make money for himself and entertainment, understands the American political system very well. Not the governmental system where he’s not even a student of American government at this point, but instead barely knows it exist and sees the U.S. Justice Department and White House Legal Counsel Office, as his personal law firms that are supposed to be in the business to only represent him.

But Trump is smart enough about American politics to know where American voters are at least on the right-wing side of it and not the Center-Right of the Republican Party, but the hardcore Right if not Far-Right. And he knows what he can do and has to do to get those voters to vote for him and support him.

Trump also knows that there is this so-called Reagan Democrat wing in the Democratic Party who generally vote for Democrats for President and who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama for President twice, but that these voters haven’t been part of the economic recovery that we’ve been living though since 2009. And hate our American political system and the politicians that get elected for obvious reasons. And that Donald Trump completely represents the anti-political as well as government establishment in America.

Donald Trump represents what can happen when you have a Congress with a 15% approval rating, where you have a large percentage of middle class workers who haven’t gotten a raise in twenty years, where corruption in politics and government looks like the norm instead of a surprise. And for the Far-Right in America Trump represents what can happen when you have an America that looks like America which is the world ethnically and racially, instead of just looking like Europe.

All Donald Trump did in 2015-16 was to be smart enough to understand these things and be smart enough to take advantage of them. You want to get the Donald Trump’s of the world out of the American political system and more importantly out of the American government, you need better government and better people working in government especially at the top. And even more importantly you need better and smarter voters who vote for good people to represent them. Even if they tell them things and take positions that they don’t want to see and hear from time to time.

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A&E: Naomi Ekperigin- Infamous Killers: David Berkowitz- The Son of Sam

Source: A&E

Source: This piece was originally posted at The Daily Review

I doubt I’m the only person who has done this but for the last 10-20 years or so but I’ve been wondering why a somewhat normal seeming man like David Berkowitz would decide to go out and simply murder people in New York City or anywhere else. Not to look for justification for those murders and of course there are no justifiable murders. Murder by definition- the intentional taking of innocent human life by definition is a crime. The worst crime you could commit against anyone. Calling a murder justifiable would be like calling a cheeseburger a hot dog, a slice of pizza a peanut butter sandwich. Its simply not believable on its face.

But I’ve been wanting to know why would a somewhat innocent looking and normal intelligent man who had a good job and was able to support himself even if he was somewhat lonely and isolated, why would this person go out and decide to murder as many 10-20 innocent people and perhaps more. What would drive a normal productive man to go out and murder all of those innocent people for no apparent reason and why after being found sane and able to stand trial for his murders how would a serial murderer like David Berkowitz (the self-proclaim Son of Sam) avoid the death penalty. The death penalty is for people who murder multiple people and get some pleasure from that.

Again, this doesn’t justify what David Berkowitz did and I’ not anti-military or even anti-war, but David Berkowitz joined the U.S. Army right after high school in the early 1970s and discovered early on that he was very good with guns. He wasn’t even in the Vietnam War but instead was sent to South Korea to join the forces there that was protecting the South from Communist North Korea. I believe Berkowitz discovered that he was good with guns and good at shooting people and perhaps even discovered that he enjoyed doing it. He gets an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army in 1974 and comes back to New York City where he grew up in the 1950s and 1960s and discovers that he’s alone and doesn’t fit in where he grew up.

What the Son of Sam means to me and I’m obviously not David Berkowitz’s biographer, is that he saw himself as the Son of Uncle Sam. This mythical character that is supposed to represent the U.S. Government and generally what most people believe and I’m one of them, represents what big government looks like in America. Americans who hate high taxes and over centralization of government, the War on Drugs, invasion of privacy, to use as examples. Not to say that Berkowitz hates big government, but I believe he saw it as his duty and was trained to murder people on the behalf of Uncle Sam as what he called himself The Son of Sam. Which is my little theory of why David Berkowitz did what he did.

A&E: Naomi Ekperigin- Infamopus Killers: David Berkowitz- The Son of Sam

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The Film Historian: Susan Hayward Biography

Source:The Film Historian– Hollywood Babydoll Susan Hayward.

“For more interesting movie facts, Please join my Facebook group:Facebook…

Source:The Film Historian

Susan Hayward was so adorable, a beautiful baby-face sweetheart and a hell of an actress. She was as great of an actress as she was to look at. So pretty and adorable at the same time and could always crack a joke and make people laugh. I believe very similar to Ava Gardner in that way, but not as beautiful. But both were very beautiful, adorable even in an immature way at times when they didn’t get their way and funny as well.

I believe had she lived longer Susan would have ended up doing soap opera and perhaps even prime-time soaps like Dynasty or Dallas, which is what Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor did on Dynasty in the 1980s. Because she was so adapt at bringing drama and being very dramatic and mixing in wise cracks and making people laugh at the same time. She was the constant entertainer when she was working or not working.

Just saw two Susan Hayward movies this last week. Two of her best movies in Where Love Has Gone from 1964 with Mike Connors and Betty Davis. And I Want To Live, where she plays convicted murderer Barbara Graham who was convicted of murdering one of her partners in crime (I know that sounds lame) in the 1950s and gets sentenced to death in California.

Susan plays a woman who is on death row and she ends up having almost everyone in the movie hoping she gets her sentenced commuted to life without parole, because no one wants to see her die, because she knows how to treat people and is so sweet and adorable and real and knows she’s lived a bad life and is a career criminal. But ends up having a lot of people fighting for her life and getting her off of death row.

Where Love Has Gone, is basically a two-hour soap opera. Lots of sarcasm which is perfect for a movie where the stars are Susan Hayward, Mike Connors and Bette Davis. This movie (I at least believe) is based off of the Lana Turner-Johnny Stompanato relationship in the 1950s. Where Lana’s daughter Cheryl ends up killing Johnny who was an Italian mobster, because she believes Johnny is trying to kill her mother Lana.

In Where Love Has Gone Susan’s daughter in the movie (played by Joey Heatherton) kills her mother’s boyfriend, because she believes her mother is spending too much time with him and her mom is not spending enough time with her. It’s a classic Susan Hayward movie, because it’s heavy on the drama and even soap opera and yet a movie with a lot of quick humor in it.

Susan Hayward I believe was a great dramatic-comedic actress. And not necessarily someone who could do both drama and comedy, because of course she could. But that she was adept at combining both genres in one movie. Very similar to Alfred Hitchcock, but as an actress and not as a director.

She just had a great personality and was very real with her work and characters and always had the audience believing that she was exactly who she was playing. And not some actress pretending to be someone else. And had she not have died from radiation poisoning in the 1970s I believe she would be talked about today as the great dramatic-comedy actress that she was. And getting the attention for being as beautiful and adorable as she really was.

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Late Night With Conan O’Brien: Norm MacDonald & Courtney Thorne Smith (1997)

Source:Bruce Illest– Norm MacDonald and Courtney Thorne Smith, on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in 1998.

Source:The New Democrat 

“This is an interview with a girl from MELROSE PLACE… Thank GOD, Norm Macdonald cannot resist giving her the business.”

From Bruce Illest

Thank God for Norm MacDonald otherwise this interview would’ve been about Chairman of The Board. That so far I’ve been a hundred-percent successful in not seeing. I guess they could’ve talked about Melrose Place which was a great show, at least the last two seasons of it that I saw. But Courtney was on the show to talk about Chairman of The Bored, I mean Chairman of The Board.

I mean who would want to be Chairman of The Bored. You would constantly be chairing over people having trouble staying awake at your bored meetings, I mean board meetings. But that was why Norm was there so they wouldn’t have to spend 5-10 minutes talking about the movie and having to listen to people snoring in the audience. Which would’ve been distracting for the audience.

And losing people to more interesting things like PBS fundraising drives. And high school plays on public access TV.

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ABC Wild World of Sports: Howard Cosell-Muhammad Ali Interview

 

Source:ABC Sports– announcer Howard Cosell, interviewing The Greatest of All Time, Muhammad Ali. Perhaps you can tell for yourself which one is which. But I don’t believe Muhammad Ali was Jewish.

“Muhammad Ali And Howard Cossel Interview”

Source:CoEvi Sessions

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on WordPress.

Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell were a comedy act talking about serious things, well as serious as pro-boxing can be. Who without each other working together, their careers wouldn’t have been as good and they wouldn’t have been as successful. Because of the chemistry that they had, as well as their intelligence, they both had great sense of humors.

But Muhammad and Howard had similar sense of humors. And not only knew each other very well, but themselves as well and didn’t try to be anyone else. What really made these interviews classics, were because they were truly unscripted and how real they were. Two good, intelligent, friends, with real quick wits who had great chemistry together.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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Firing Line With William F. Buckley: Governor George C. Wallace- ‘The Wallace Crusade From 1968’

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley– Interviewing Governor C. Wallace in 1968.

Source:The New Democrat 

“Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Wallace Crusade. Episode 088, Recorded on January 24, 1968 Guest: George C. (George Corley) Wallace.”

From Firing Line With William F. Buckley

Great debate between Bill Buckley and George Wallace, because Buckley was a true Conservative and he would’ve taken the more progressive or liberal stance against Wallace when it came to civil rights and segregation. Or least that it how it would seem. I even as a Liberal believe you can be a Conservative and still believe in commonsense American values like liberty, equality, equal rights and civil liberties. But that is me.

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Firing Line With William F. Buckley: ‘Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Wallace Crusade’

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley– Judge Leander Perez: Louisiana.

Source:The New Democrat 

“Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Wallace Movement. Episode 095, Recorded on April 15, 1968: Guest: Leander Perez.”

From Firing Line With William F. Buckley 

“Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Wallace Crusade. Episode 088, Recorded on January 24, 1968 Guest: George C. (George Corley) Wallace.”

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley– Interviewing Governor C. Wallace in 1968.

From Firing Line With William F. Buckley 

“Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Wallace Crusade. Episode 088, Recorded on January 24, 1968 Guest: George C. (George Corley) Wallace For more information about this program, see…

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley– Governor George C. Wallace: D. Alabama.

From Rick Donald

Bill Buckley was a true Conservative and he would’ve taken the more progressive or liberal stance against Wallace when it came to civil rights and segregation. Or least that it how it would seem. I even as a Liberal believe you can be a Conservative and still believe in commonsense American values like liberty, equality, equal rights and civil liberties. But that is me.

I never heard of Leander Perez from Louisiana before I saw this video. But apparently he was both Governor of Louisiana and a judge in Louisiana and this interview was done in 1968. And they were talking segregation and the civil rights laws. And the Governor telling Bill Buckley that he’s not a racist even though he says Negros (which is what African-Americans back then were called) are morally inferior to Caucasian-Americans. And Perez saying that he’s being honest and that is the truth, “why hide it”? With Buckley replying “so you are an honest bigot”.

Governor George C. Wallace was a Dixiecrat, a right-wing (at least on social cultural issues) Nationalist who was basically still fighting the Civil War and wanting to lead Confederates in that war. Not ready to perhaps even see African-Americans as people, let alone as Americans deserving of the same rights and protections, as well as responsibilities as European-Americans. Bill Buckley was a Conservative. And one of the conservative values is treating individuals as exactly that. And not treating people as members of groups. Worst or better simply because of their race.

The so-called Wallace Movement of the South of the 1960s and 1970s, was different. And more of a racially based nationalistic movement of Southern Caucasians, predominantly Protestant and perhaps even Anglo-Saxon. Who felt having African-Americans in their community was some type of an invasion. When the fact was and still is that Africans are just as American as Europeans and as such deserving of the same rights as European-Americans and every other race in America. The Wallace Movement simply saw African-Americans as inferior. And not deserving of the same rights and protections.

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Canadian Blaster: NASL 1979- Semifinal-Vancouver Whitecaps @ New York Cosmos: Overtime

Source:Canadian Blaster– The Vancouver Whitecaps and New York Cosmos from 1979.

Source:The New Democrat

“In what many consider to be the greatest match in the history of the original North American Soccer League, this is ABC’s broadcast of the second leg of the 1979 National Soccer Conference final between the Vancouver Whitecaps and the defending NASL champion New York Cosmos.

This match was held at the now-demolished Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Vancouver had taken the first leg of the NSC final in Vancouver by a score of 2-0. For the Cosmos to advance to the Soccer Bowl, they would have to win this leg, then win a 30-minute ‘mini-game’ after that.

This video shows the conclusion of the match, which included the conclusion of the extra time period and the NASL shootout to decide the winner.

As it turned out, the 30-minute ‘mini-game’ would indeed be needed, and even that had its own extra time period and subsequent NASL shootout following it.

The announcers calling the match are Jim McKay and Paul Gardner, with Verne Lundquist on the sideline.

This video is intended for entertainment purposes only and no infringement of any kind is intended.”

From Canadian Blaster

“There seems to be little disagreement (famous last words) among fans of the original NASL that the greatest game in that league’s 17 seasons was the second leg of the 1979 semifinal between the New York Cosmos and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

That this bitter rivalry produced a heated battle was no surprise. There had been bad blood between the Cosmos and the Whitecaps throughout the 1979 season, including a fight that had seen four players sent off, and it continued into the first game of their semifinal series, a 2-0 victory for Vancouver at Empire Stadium in Vancouver.

The spark that set off the trouble in that game was the second Vancouver goal, on a breakaway by Trevor Whymark. The Cosmos felt that the goal should have been disallowed for offside. Carlos Alberto led the Cosmos’ futile protest against the goal, and the atmosphere wasn’t helped any when Andranik Eskandarian was red carded after taking a run at a Vancouver player. Then, in the tunnel leading to the locker rooms after the game, Carlos Alberto got into an altercation with an official that, according to the league reports, included spitting on him.”

Source:US Soccer History– The New York Cosmos and Vancouver Whitecaps from 1979.

From US Soccer History

One of the best played soccer games in both American and Canadian history. I’m not a soccer expert American or otherwise and at best a casual soccer fan. I do have some appreciation for the sport, but do not follow it closely. But I do know this was one of the best games in soccer history between these two countries. Because of the two teams that were involved, how evenly matched they were and the fact that either team could’ve won it.

American soccer needs more games like this and need more Americanized rules as well to bring more Americans fans in to today’s MLS. Which is something that the NASL understood 30-40 years ago which is why they were able to draw baseball and football size crowds to their games. And not stuck 15-10 thousand attendance and that would be good crowds for todays MLS.

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The Fiscal Times: Liz Peek: ‘Why The Elite Attack Mainstream America’

Source:The Fiscal Times– I guess this is supposed to be Middle America.

“The United States is at war. No, I don’t mean in Afghanistan or Syria; I mean right here in River City. Right here where our opinion-makers and political leaders are doing their level best to demean and discredit historical American values. A new film, Nebraska, that parodies our heartland, provides exhibit A.

Nebraska played at the Lincoln Center Film Festival in New York recently to an enthusiastic audience. Directed by Alexander Payne, whose body of work includes The Descendants, Nebraska speaks volumes about the country we live in. While one reviewer lauded the picture as a “nuanced portrait of small-town life” that “contemplates the loss of the stout Midwest that once formed America’s backbone,” I found it mean-spirited and insulting.

RELATED: WHY VOTERS TRUST THE GOP WITH THEIR TAX DOLLARS

Only people who actually believe that Midwesterners are mute and moronic could think this movie portrays accurately or with sympathy the folks who live in between our coasts. Rather, the film paints small-town America as culturally deprived, small-minded and venal – inhabited by folks “clinging to guns or religion,” as Barack Obama so famously put it. It’s hard to picture Johnny Carson or Warren Buffet emerging from such a bleak landscape.

This is the great divide in the U.S. today. It is not between blacks and whites – or rich and poor; it is between the elites in California or New York and ordinary people who wouldn’t know a Wagyu beefburger from an heirloom tomato. The pundits who cannot imagine how anyone can live in Nebraska’s farm country also can’t imagine why anyone ever voted for George W. Bush; they do not and cannot understand the Tea Party. And, they are scornful of what they do not understand.

The elites do not celebrate the rich history of our plains states, the struggle to tame the frontier and to create the world’s most productive agricultural society. In their hearts, they also deride the assembly line workers who built our industrial base, the hard hats who kick back with Bud at the end of their shift, instead of cozying up to the New Yorker.”

From The Fiscal Times

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