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Embattled governor Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) has retained the services of a high-powered criminal defense attorney who defended Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen against allegations of sexual assault. Elkan Abramowitz, a former federal prosecutor with close ties to Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance, will serve as legal counsel to the governor and his top aides, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. New York attorney general Letitia James is investigating the Cuomo administration on several fronts. Three women have now accused the governor of sexual harassment. Allegations include unwanted kissing and touching, as well as inappropriate or suggestive comments, such as...

Quick question: Why is Chris Matthews out of a job and Joy Reid still employed at NBC News? We’ll explore that fascinating double-standard at play over at the Peacock Network in a moment. First of all, everyone at MSNBC knew Matthews was a problem. I mean, I was only on MSNBC a few times in early 2017 and I witnessed one of his tirades directed at his long-suffering staff. I was sitting in the green room at the NBC News location on Nebraska Ave. in North West DC. I was due for an appearance on a mid-day program and “Mr....

The Only #MeToo Stories Hollywood Will Tell Are About Republicans They’re not exposés, they’re cover-ups. Mon Oct 14, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 19 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Over 80 women accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of everything from harassment to rape. The drama of the case made the #MeToo movement go global. And you might think that there would be a movie in that. But years later, the closest we’ve come are rumors that Brad Pitt, who has his own history...

This weekend we learned that former MSNBC regular and accused serial sexual harasser Mark Halperin has landed himself a new book deal. Regan Arts will be releasing a new book by Halperin in November, providing advice on “How to Beat Trump” next year. The author remains something of a sore spot in the #MeToo movement and this news left some of his former friends and allies shaking their heads. But that was nothing compared to the reactions of some of his accusers, who feel that he’s being given a pass without doing the required walk of shame first. (Daily Beast)...

uring the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama famously became so frustrated by his running mate’s logorrhea that he asked an aide, “How many times is Biden going to say something stupid?” According to authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the VP’s stock had dropped so low by late 2011 that the Obama reelection team considered replacing Biden with Hillary Clinton on the 2012 ticket. And, as his busing blunder clearly demonstrated, Biden still has the old gift for gaffes. According to a new Washington Post-ABC poll, however, if the 2020 election were held today, Biden would beat President Trump by...

The sexual harassment reckoning has exposed many men in positions of power for their bad behavior. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin and others have either been fired or suspended for sexual misconduct. In the political realm, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is resigning in early January after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) made his way to the exit after his sexual harassment allegations made it into the limelight; he paid $27,000 to settle a claim in 2015. And yes, that’s our money he used for that expenditure. This reached a boiling point during the...

Well, that didn't take long for her to get her mind right. It only took a few hours from the time Mika Brzezinksi on Friday's Morning Joe criticized the sexual harassment accusers of Mark Halperin for not meeting with him personally to apologizing for it later that afternoon. Seeing your own career starting to slip away can be a powerful incentive for producing an apology. Mika's dramatic U-turn concerning former colleague Halperin was a result of this statement: "Mark Halperin is more than willing to meet with his accusers and apologize with them face-to-face. I've actually tried to offer him...

Amber Athey of the Daily Caller exclusively reported last night that NBC paid large sums of money - upwards of tens of thousands of dollars- to Chris Matthews' assistant producer in 1999 after she brought forth sexual harassment complaints against the current MSNBC “Hardball with Chris Matthews” anchor.Two anonymous MSNBC sources told the Daily Caller that Matthews paid $40,000 to settle a sexual harassment complaint with the unnamed woman, but an MSNBC spokesperson officially denied those monetary claims. However, they did say that the company paid the woman “significantly less as part of a severance package" and confirmed an incident...

Let’s start with a general baseline here: sexual harassment is unacceptable. The creeps have to go. Period. This is beyond dispute. As more and more women come forward detailing horrific stories of harassment and in some cases assault, the dominos are falling. Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, and Mark Halperin, fixtures of American political journalism and the morning shows have fallen after lurid and depraved tales of harassment came to light. Harvey Weinstein, the once top-Hollywood producer, was the first to fall in this reckoning that’s sweeping the world. Yet, there is some silver lining regarding the political angle of this;...

Ain’t that odd: based just on the transcript of his interview with Sean Hannity, John Heilemann can look at Roy Moore and say, “that’s a perp right there.” . . . So surely supersleuth Heilemann must have been aware of the sexual misconduct by Mark Halperin, which led to his firing from MSNBC and loss of other engagements. After all, Heilemann worked side-by-side with Halperin for a decade, co-authoring two books and co-hosting a TV show with him, among other projects. Get the rest of the story and view the video at FinkelBlog.

The LA Times has a big expose’ this morning that chronicles complaints by dozens of women about the culture of sexual harassment that exists in California’s state capital building. California government, of course, is dominated by the Democrat Party, which holds super-majority status in both houses of the legislature, the governor’s office, and thus the vast majority of jobs in the state’s myriad government agencies. Wait, aren’t the Democrats supposed to be the protectors of women’s rights? Then there’s ABC, a completely leftwing-dominated fake news organization which saw fit to employ a serial sexual harasser – current liberal NBC political...

Let's look at two pictures side by side and see if we can tell how they're different. In one panel, we see a famous TV political analyst who apparently had the charming habit of pressing his erect, if clothed, penis against the bodies of young women who worked with and for him. That was Mark Halperin. In the second panel, we have former President George H.W. Bush, in a wheelchair, age 89, posing for a photo with a number of others, including his wife Barbara, and an actress called Heather Lind. Lind says she felt moved to share her trauma...

NOTICE: While MOTUS enjoys a well deserved vacation on the shores of the Great Lakes, Raj and Little Mo occupy her blog.Just when Mueller, Comey, Ronstein, McCabe et al, thought they had the Russia! Russia! Russia! investigation under control, it turns radioactive. The Justice Department lifted a gag order that will allow a former FBI informant speak to congressional panels investigating an Obama-era deal in which a Russian-backed company was able to get control of a significant amount of the United States uranium supply.A DOJ spokesman late Wednesday cleared the way for the informant to disclose to the committees “any...

CNN has reported that five women have accused Mark Halperin of sexual harassment during his time at ABC News some years ago. Halperin has been an MSNBC contributor for years, and a regular on the Morning Joe panel. Mika Brzezinski addressed the story this morning: "CNN is reporting allegations regarding our friend, Mark Halperin . . . I'm sure we'll be talking about it again when we know more about it." My take: it might sound like a cliche, but I was surprised and saddened to see the story. It's easy to lump all MSM figures in the same biased...

Widely considered to be one of the preeminent political journalists, Halperin, 52, has, among other career highlights, been political director at ABC News; co-authored the bestselling book "Game Change," which was made into an HBO movie starring Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin...He currently serves as an analyst for NBC News, making frequent appearances on MSNBC's "Morning Joe..."

On today’s Morning Joe, MSNBC senior political analyst Mark Halperin said that special counsel Robert Mueller “is a cyborg.” Joe Scarborough was so tickled by the description that he had Halperin repeat it. Calling Mueller “a relentless opponent,” Halperin said that “there is a strategy here, there’s a fearlessness, and there’s a level of coordination that makes anyone trying to help the president on this be put in a very defensive position.” View the video here.

If Dems were smart, they’d watch and learn from the opening segment of today’s Morning Joe. In his item of last night, Prof. Jacobson noted how Dems were taking the wrong lesson from the election, claiming that a close loss was a win. The message from Morning Joe was starkly different. As Mark Halperin put it this morning, this was an “unmitigated disaster” for the Dems. Joe Scarborough said that “all the chips were pushed to the middle of the table here. This was a winner take all and it was a huge win for Republicans and a big loss...

Morning Joe has been on a Steve Bannon-bashing tear the last couple of days, with various panel members predicting his departure from the White House. As Mika Brzezinski put it yesterday, “the end is nigh” for Bannon. But Mark Halperin made a strong case for Bannon on today’s show, saying that being conventional is not what got Donald Trump elected, and that “Bannon is one of the few people in the White House and in Trump’s life who is creative, who’s innovative, who takes risks, who advocates taking risks. Someone has to be for that.” View the video here.

As the rest of the Morning Joe panel remained in three-alarm, apocalyptic mode this morning, there was one lonely voice bringing some balance to the discussion. MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin said it was “completely improper” of FBI Director James Comey to have revealed the existence of an ongoing investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Rejecting Mika Brzezinski’s suggestion that Comey was “compelled” to make the revelation, Halperin added that Comey “says the standard is, if the public is interested in something, I’ll reveal an ongoing probe. I’ve never heard of this standard. I think it’s a...

On Monday, the hosts of Morning Joe mocked and berated White House adviser Stephen Miller for his recent comments regarding the court ruling against President Trump's immigration order. Tuesday morning was no different, as the show came back from a commercial break by airing a distorted, grainy black-and-white video of Miller. The video contained the statement he gave on the network Sunday shows concerning the President’s executive powers and spliced Miller’s quotes attempting to make him look sinister and menacing. After the video concluded, host Joe Scarborough declared, “Wow,” and journalist Willie Geist agreed, “That’s terrifying.” Co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed...