Democrats Are Socialists, Duh

The polling is just now catching up to the reality on the ground. Go to any college campus and nearly everyone --- from administrators, faculty, and the students --- will tell they prefer socialism over the free market. I've been saying so for years. Obama ushered in an era where open embrace of radical leftism was cool. Bernie brought the last shy leftist out of the socialist closet. And with the lame brain leftist Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, far-left Democrats can run on an openly Marxist platform and win office.

This is a good development, people. It clarifies the lines of ideological contestation. I love it.

At Gallup, "Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism":

Democrats have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism... https://t.co/qSBZ6vkpk2 pic.twitter.com/4XnryzaD9J

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) August 13, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For the first time in Gallup's measurement over the past decade, Democrats have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism. Attitudes toward socialism among Democrats have not changed materially since 2010, with 57% today having a positive view. The major change among Democrats has been a less upbeat attitude toward capitalism, dropping to 47% positive this year -- lower than in any of the three previous measures. Republicans remain much more positive about capitalism than about socialism, with little sustained change in their views of either since 2010.

These results are from Gallup interviewing conducted July 30-Aug. 5. Views of socialism among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are particularly important in the current political environment because many observers have claimed the Democratic Party is turning in more of a socialist direction.

Socialist Bernie Sanders competitively challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, and more recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a candidate with similar policy views and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won the Democratic nomination in New York's 14th Congressional District. Several candidates with socialist leanings lost their primary bids in Aug. 7 voting, however, raising doubts about the depth of Democrats' embrace of socialism.

The current survey is the fourth time Gallup has measured Americans' overall views of capitalism and socialism in this format. The question wording does not define "socialism" or "capitalism" but simply asks respondents whether their opinion of each is positive or negative...

Yeah, don't ask any of these idiot leftists to define terms, as you'll get a nonsense regurgitation which is the calling card of Ocasio Cortez (*eye roll*).

But keep reading.

Citizen Rose

Rose McGowan's new book, Brave, is out today.

Plus, her new reality show debuts tonight on E!, "Citizen Rose."

It's reviewed at the Los Angeles Times, "'Citizen Rose' keeps the #MeToo conversation, and Rose McGowan's career, alive."

And the book review, "In 'Brave,' Rose McGowan finally tells her whole story":

There is a moment in Rose McGowan's new documentary series when she learns that Harvey Weinstein has allegedly stolen the first half of her memoir, "Brave," months in advance of its publication.

"I can't tell you how violating it felt," she explains via voice-over. "It was like being back in that room with him all over again, only this time, it was the inside of my mind and not my body."

Readers of "Brave" will understand why the revelation so enraged McGowan. She does not hold back when writing about Weinstein, whom she refers to only as "The Monster."

Long before the Weinstein scandal broke, McGowan publicly alleged that she had been raped by a Hollywood producer. After other women came forward with allegations of abuse, McGowan named Weinstein. But "Brave" is the first time she has described the alleged attack. Weinstein has denied the allegations.

Midway through the memoir, the incident occupies an entire chapter called "Death of Self." At the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, Weinstein invited McGowan to his hotel room for a meeting. Just a few hours before, he had sat behind her at the premiere of her film "Going All the Way," in which she appeared topless.

Her manager insisted the meeting was important, she writes. "I was so new to the industry's upper echelon, I didn't know … what so many already knew, that he was a predator and I was walking into a trap."

Once she was inside his hotel room, Weinstein offered to show her the hot tub, and before long, she writes, he had pushed her into a steamy room and begun stripping her clothes off. After picking her up and putting her on the edge of the Jacuzzi, she writes, he forced her legs open and performed oral sex on her while masturbating. She pretended to have an orgasm in an attempt to end the experience.

"I did what so many who experience trauma do, I disassociated and left my body. Detached from my body, I hover up under the ceiling, watching myself sitting on the edge of the tub, against a wall, held in place by the Monster whose face is between my legs, trapped by a beast. In this tiny room with this huge man, my mind is blank. Wake up Rose; get out of here."

The alleged sexual assault was the culmination of years of torment for McGowan, and "Brave" begins at the beginning. Using a brash tone that will be familiar to the millions who follow her on Twitter, McGowan describes her life, starting with the girlhood years she spent in a religious cult ("I was told I was worth nothing in the eyes of God"), the eating disorder she suffered as a teen ("I was never able to get below 92 pounds"), and her decision to legally emancipate herself from her parents at 15.

Still, as she describes her formative years it is clear that McGowan, 44, has always viewed herself as a defiant spirit and still takes pride in the fact that she grew angry over being made to wear a pink smock at school while the boys got blue ones.

That was after her family split from the Children of God. McGowan's father led the Italian branch and McGowan remembers being forced to declare her acceptance of God, lest she be beaten. When she was 4 a cult elder spotted a wart on her thumb and sliced it off with a razor blade, beginning "a narrative that [messed] with my head for years, that of perfection as self-protection. I told myself if I were just perfect enough, I'd be okay."

When the cult began promoting sex between children and adults, McGowan's father decided to leave. After the family returned to America, where they split time between Oregon and Colorado, she felt out of place. Her schoolmates couldn't understand her odd upbringing and she lashed out, still describing their "proverbial white picket fence" backgrounds as equally dangerous, "a different kind of cult."

"I'm sure I was unnerving as a child because of my intensity. I know I was because I basically was the same as I am now, and I tend to unnerve people to this day."

A runaway at 13, McGowan lived for a year on the street. When she returned home, her father demanded $300 a month in rent so she began gigging as an extra for $35 a day. Before long, she'd moved to Hollywood, finding leading roles in movies like "Scream" and "Jawbreaker." She began dating high-profile men such as Marilyn Manson and director Robert Rodriguez, whom McGowan calls only "RR."

Her relationship with Manson, though oft-scrutinized in the press, was largely without conflict, blissful even, from her descriptions of Manson "painting watercolors of my Boston terriers while I was ordering glassware from Martha Stewart's online store."

This was not the case with "RR," whom McGowan met at the Cannes Film Festival while the filmmaker was still married. RR was at turns weirdly flattering — "I got you at your ripest," he told her — and intensely possessive. On the set of "Grindhouse," McGowan writes, RR would often fly into jealous rages, accusing her of secretly being in love with his collaborator, Quentin Tarantino. Then, after the movie was completed, RR sold it to Dimension Films, a division of the Weinstein Co.

"I can't tell you what it was like to be sold into the hands of the man who had assaulted me and scarred me for life," McGowan writes. "I had to do press events with the Monster and see photos of us together, his big fat paw pulling me in to his body."

More.

Uma Thurman Too Angry to Talk About Sexual Assault Allegations Right Now

She looks genuinely upset and angry.

She's a good lady. I don't care if she's a leftist. It's leftists who've been raping Hollywood's women for a century.

Uma Thurman's response when asked about the flood of sexual misconduct allegations....wow. pic.twitter.com/Sw5Br1GwFg

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 4, 2017

Rose McGowan on the Red Carpet at MTV Music Video Awards in 1998 (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Refusing Harvey Weinstein’s Hush Money."

I've seen reference to the 1998 MTV video awards, although I missed the part about her dating Marilyn Manson, eww.

It's at YouTube, though, naturally: "Rose McGowan at the1998 MTV Awards."

PREVIOUSLY: "Rose McGowan Escaped a Polygamy Cult When She Was Nine-Years-Old."

Refusing Harvey Weinstein’s Hush Money

Rose McGowan's a radical leftist. She really is. She's about the resistance, lol.

But I like her anyway. I'm cutting her some slack. Politics is messed up as it is. It's tribal. I hate Democrats. But she's becoming an iconic presence, speaking out, and speaking way ahead of everyone else. It's empowering. Of course, she's taking down the left while she's at it, so that's particularly interesting, heh.

In any case, at NYT, "Refusing Weinstein’s Hush Money, Rose McGowan Calls Out Hollywood":

Just before our Weinstein investigation was published, his camp offered Rose McGowan a million bucks in hush money. https://t.co/QkYJlCX1Lo

— jodikantor (@jodikantor) October 29, 2017

In late September, just as multiple women were days away from going on the record with reports of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct, one of his alleged assault victims, Rose McGowan, considered an offer that suggested just how desperate the Hollywood producer had become.

Ms. McGowan, who was working on a memoir called “Brave,” had spoken privately over the years about a 1997 hotel room encounter with Mr. Weinstein and hinted at it publicly. Through her lawyer, she said, someone close to Mr. Weinstein offered her hush money: $1 million, in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement.

In 1997, Ms. McGowan had reached a $100,000 settlement with Mr. Weinstein, but that agreement, she learned this summer, had never included a confidentiality clause. Ms. McGowan, who was most widely known for her role as a witch on the WB show “Charmed,” had recently developed a massive following as a fiery feminist on Twitter, but she was now, at 44, a multimedia artist, no longer acting, her funds depleted by health care costs for her father, who died eight years ago.

“I had all these people I’m paying telling me to take it so that I could fund my art,” Ms. McGowan said in an interview. She responded by asking for $6 million, part counteroffer, part slow torture of her former tormentor, she said. “I figured I could probably have gotten him up to three,” she said. “But I was like — ew, gross, you’re disgusting, I don’t want your money, that would make me feel disgusting.”

She said she told her lawyer to pull the offer within a day of The New York Times publishing an article that detailed decades of Mr. Weinstein’s alleged sexual harassment, aggression and misconduct toward women, as well as at least seven other settlements he had reached with accusers. After that, the dam burst, with The New Yorker, The Times and other news outlets reporting on dozens of other women’s experiences with Mr. Weinstein.

Mr. Weinstein, his accusers say, built his long history of abusing women on a risky gamble that worked for him over and over — the assumption that money or threats could buy women’s silence on a subject so intimate and painful that most would prefer not to go public anyway. While Ms. McGowan was the rare voice suggesting that the cover-up was not fail-safe, even she considered not naming him, having already, she believes, paid a career price for that long-ago episode and its aftermath.

A Weinstein spokeswoman, Sallie Hofmeister, said that “Mr. Weinstein unequivocally denies any allegations of nonconsensual sex.” Ms. McGowan’s lawyer, Paul Coggins, confirmed that Ms. McGowan received the offer.

By 2015, Ms. McGowan, who felt alienated by the industry, started using her sizable platform on Twitter to maximize her status as both insider and outsider — someone with enough Hollywood experience to speak with authority about sexism within it, and someone liberated enough from its compromises to unleash the fury in her that had been building for years. Only now does the scope of the news about Mr. Weinstein — and the public conversation about what’s wrong with Hollywood — seem to match the scale of her outrage, giving her the clout of a contrarian at last proven right.

On Friday, at the inaugural Women’s Convention in Detroit, she was a featured speaker — a new, combative face of feminism, endowed with Hollywood charisma yet anything but slick. “I have been silenced for 20 years,” she told the gathering. “I have been slut-shamed. I have been harassed. I have been maligned. And you know what? I’m just like you.”

More.

Harvey Weinstein and the Myth of 'Toxic Masculinity'

It's Helen Smith, at Pajamas, via Instapundit, "THE INSTA-WIFE: Harvey Weinstein and the Myth of “Toxic Masculinity”."

How Harvey Weinstein Built Pipeline of Access to the World's Beautiful Women

A guide to the super-predator's methods, at LAT, "How Harvey Weinstein used his fashion business as a pipeline to models":

It was the kind of evening Zoë Brock was accustomed to, an intimate dinner party at an Art Deco hotel on a waterfront avenue in Cannes. The Australian model was ushered to an empty seat at a long table on a lush patio overlooking a swimming pool.

She didn’t recognize the man seated next to her, but would quickly find out he was Harvey Weinstein, a brusque American producer in town for the film festival.

That first encounter of champagne and small talk would end in a much less elegant fashion hours later in a hotel room, where Weinstein stood before Brock naked and solicited a massage. She said she locked herself in a bathroom to escape him.

Still shaken by that night in 1998, Brock believes the events were set in motion by men connected to Weinstein.

"Someone put me there next to him — that was on purpose. I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people that would like to sit next to Harvey Weinstein,” said Brock, 43, who was represented by a Milanese modeling agency at the time. “So why was it me?"

Weinstein, 65, is best known for his pioneering career in the independent film industry, but over the last two decades he has also carved out a significant business in fashion — executive producing the television show "Project Runway," investing in the clothing brand Halston, and backing the high-end womenswear company Marchesa, which was co-founded by his wife, former model Georgina Chapman. The foray generated a profitable TV franchise, lucrative partnerships and cachet among the global jet set.

But that success was only one of the benefits for Weinstein. In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, nearly a dozen people with ties to the industry — including models, casting directors, publicists and executives connected to "Project Runway" — said that he used fashion as a pipeline to women. They said that models, oftentimes young and working overseas far from home, were particularly vulnerable.

In addition to Brock, more than 10 other former or current fashion models — including Cara Delevingne and Angie Everhart — have accused Weinstein of a wide range of sexual misconduct.

In a previously unreported incident, former Brazilian model Juliana De Paula told The Times that Weinstein groped her and forced her to kiss other models that he had taken to his loft in New York a decade ago. When she tried to leave, she said, he chased her through the apartment, naked. She fended him off with a broken glass.

“He looked at me and he started to laugh,” she recalled. “I was shocked. I was completely in disbelief.”

Another model, Samantha Panagrosso, said Weinstein made unwanted sexual advances toward her during the Cannes Film Festival in 2003. When Weinstein began touching her legs under the water at a hotel pool and she rebuffed him, he pointed at another model, she recalled in an interview with The Times. “Look at her, I’m going to have her come to my room for a screen test,” she said Weinstein told her.

When Panagrosso told friends about his continuing advances, she said, they laughed it off: “Sam, don’t be so naïve, you know Harvey can make you a star.”

Since the New York Times and the New Yorker first wrote about Weinstein’s alleged assaults earlier this month, more than 50 women have come forward to describe their experiences, and he has been fired by Weinstein Co., the indie studio he co-founded in 2005 that has released films including “The King’s Speech.”

Six women have accused Weinstein of rape or forcible sex acts, and he is under investigation for sexual assault in Los Angeles, New York and London...

Well, Weinstein's apparently "cured" after one week of "sex-addiction" therapy, so this is all water under the bridge now, right? [Snark.]

More, in any case.

Epidemic of Sexual Harassment at California State Capitol

More from the Democrat Party's rape culture, at LAT, "'pervasive' harassment in California's Capitol".

Weinstein ripple effects in Sacramento—More than 140 women in CA politics speak out on ‘pervasive’ harassment https://t.co/iWtX5e4ECt

— Melanie Mason (@melmason) October 17, 2017

Molly Ringwald Speaks Out

At the New Yorker, which must be seeing a boom in traffic of late:

A (very) personal essay I wrote in The New Yorkerhttps://t.co/ZQqoQpuOE9

— Molly Ringwald (@MollyRingwald) October 17, 2017

Harvey Weinstein's Contract Allowed Sexual Harassment

At Hot Air, "Pay to Prey: Weinstein’s Contract Basically Allowed for Sexual Harassment — So Long As He Paid the Company":

Even if you’re not a legal eagle, you may at some point in your life have encountered the term “moral turpitude” when signing a contract. Employers will sometimes stick that phrase into the section dealing with termination for cause, for understandable reasons. The idea is that if you do something morally egregious, something that offends the sensibilities of the organization or brings it into public disrepute, you can be canned summarily. Your boss is under no obligation to keep an embarrassing degenerate on the payroll.

A moral turpitude clause would have come in handy for Harvey Weinstein considering that, if his accusers are to be believed, he’s been harassing, intimidating, groping, extorting, and raping women for, oh, 20-25 years now. And yet, according to TMZ, no such clause was to be found in his contract with the Weinstein Company. On the contrary, Big Harv had an unusual twist on the traditional moral turpitude provision in his agreement. If he was accused of “misconduct” and ended up settling with his accuser, he had to reimburse the company for any legal expenses it incurred in the process — and then he had to pay them a fine. Of up to a million dollars.

These sick bastards actually profited from Weinstein paying hush money to his victims.

According to the contract, if Weinstein “treated someone improperly in violation of the company’s Code of Conduct,” he must reimburse TWC for settlements or judgments. Additionally, “You [Weinstein] will pay the company liquidated damages of $250,000 for the first such instance, $500,000 for the second such instance, $750,000 for the third such instance, and $1,000,000 for each additional instance.”

The contract says as long as Weinstein pays, it constitutes a “cure” for the misconduct and no further action can be taken. Translation — Weinstein could be sued over and over and as long as he wrote a check, he keeps his job...

More.

Feminist Attorney Lisa Bloom 'Regrets' Representing Harvey Weinstein

Now she regrets it? Don't they all. Total shame. Total, complete, epic shame on this woman.

Now that it's all blown up, Lisa Bloom wishes she hadn't defended Harvey Weinstein. https://t.co/DHcKAunD1h

— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 14, 2017

Breaking: Lisa Bloom, who calls self "fighter for justice," tried to secretly undermine women speaking re Weinstein. https://t.co/yXbUk0R3sf pic.twitter.com/9mxAy7NXug

— jodikantor (@jodikantor) October 7, 2017

We are too angry with each other as a nation. The most I've seen in my 56 years. I hope I will always remember this experience and be kind.

— Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) October 10, 2017

The Stunning, Rapid Crash of Hollywood Rapist Harvey Weinstein

It was rapid alright, but what's so stunning is that he was able to assault, harass, and rape women for so long.

At LAT, "Harvey Weinstein went from power player to pariah in less than a week. Here's how it happened":

Harvey Weinstein went from power player to pariah in less than a week. Here's how it happened https://t.co/QOap7J8D9H pic.twitter.com/nEKvbAX3EH

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 13, 2017

Has there ever been a faster fall than that of independent film kingpin Harvey Weinstein? For years, rumors of sexual impropriety and harassment dogged him but his power in Hollywood appeared to render him unassailable. Through Miramax Films and the Weinstein Co. he won countless awards while turning actors like Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck and filmmakers such as Michael Moore and Quentin Tarantino into household names. At the Oscars, he was thanked more often than God.

Then in one fell swoop the “open secret” of his abuses became secret no longer. The New York Times and the New Yorker broke stories in which more than a dozen women detailed behavior that ranged from harassment to rape. Dozens of actresses and other Hollywood insiders quickly joined the chorus of allegations while numerous celebrities and politicians reacted to the scandal. Here’s a complete rundown of the developments:

MARCH 31, 2015
Unnamed model accuses Weinstein of sexual assault

A sexual assault complaint is filed against Weinstein in New York City. The alleged victim is a 22-year-old Italian model, whose name was not given at the time but was later revealed to be Ambra Battilana Gutierrez. The claim alleges that Weinstein groped her at the Tribeca Film Center after they had been in a meeting.

OCT. 6, 2015
Ashley Judd accuses an unnamed mogul of sexual harassment

The actress reveals that at the time she was making the 1997 film “Kiss the Girls” she was sexually harassed by someone she calls one of the industry’s “most famous, admired-slash-reviled bosses.” Judd alleges that he pressured her to join him in his hotel room and ultimately asked her to watch him take a shower. Two years later, Judd names the mogul.

OCT. 13, 2016
Rose McGowan refers to an unnamed film distributor as a ‘rapist’

Responding to a trending hashtag #WhyWomenDontReport, the actress — who appeared in Weinstein projects including “Scream” and “Grindhouse” — makes the accusation without using any names, although it later comes to light that it was intended for Weinstein.

OCT. 4, 2017
Weinstein lawyers up in anticipation of stories

Word leaks out that the New Yorker and the New York Times are preparing stories about Weinstein’s alleged misconduct when it becomes public that he has hired a virtual army of lawyers and crisis managers to fight the reports. The team includes attorney David Boies, the controversial Lisa Bloom (also the daughter of Gloria Allred), and Charles Harder, who famously won Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy trial case against the Gawker website. Weinstein preemptively denies any accusations, telling the Hollywood Reporter, "The story sounds so good, I want to buy the movie rights."

OCT. 5, 2017
The New York Times publishes its report

Hollywood is shaken when the New York Times report is published, stating that Weinstein has had a long history of sexual misconduct over the last two decades and has settled eight separate alleged sexual harassment cases. Among the numerous actresses and employees involved in the allegations are Judd, who names Weinstein as her attacker, and McGowan.

Weinstein announces a leave of absence

After issuing a statement reading, in part, “I so respect all women and regret what happened,” Weinstein announced he’d be taking a leave of absence from the Weinstein Co. effective immediately.

Hollywood begins to respond

Performers, news anchors and creative types, including Lena Dunham, Gretchen Carlson, Jenni Konner, Jake Tapper and others, begin to take to social media to condemn Weinstein, although his most famous collaborators and political allies largely remain silent. McGowan tweets without using his name...

More.

I admire Rose McGowan, but a lot of the other women coming forward are part of the problem. Hollywood hypocrites. Ashley Judd? Give me a break, pfft.

Rose McGowan Escaped a Polygamy Cult When She Was Nine-Years-Old

Man, this woman's got a history.

I really like her, although while she claims she's ambiguous about being sexualized by Hollywood, no one forces you to pose nearly nude on the cover of Rolling Stone?

In any case, she's a good lady in my book. It takes a lot of courage to speak out, and it's a considerable risk, since she signed a nondisclosure agreement with Weinstein. (No doubt he'll be having lots of lawsuits to be dealing with, and I'd bet by this point Ms. Rose just doesn't give a fuck either way.)

At the Los Angeles Times, "No one took Rose McGowan’s claims seriously. Now everyone is listening":

Well before the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, Rose McGowan was already, in her words, a “feminist whistleblowing badass.”

For months, the actress had warned of a powerful Hollywood figure who had allegedly raped her. She railed against a casting call that asked her to wear a tight tank top “that shows off cleavage (push up bras encouraged).” She was subsequently dropped by her talent agency, and tweeted: “I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up.”

Few people took notice. Many dismissed them as the rantings of an actress relegated to the fringes of Hollywood. Now, in the wake of Weinstein’s spectacular fall from grace, everyone is listening to Rose McGowan.

As multiple women have come forward with stories of sexual assault and harassment by the embattled studio head, McGowan has emerged as the fiery voice and unexpected heroine of a movement that has swept beyond Weinstein and beyond the entertainment industry.

In a series of sharply worded tweets, she has targeted other powerful media figures, circulated a petition calling on the Weinstein Co. to dissolve its board and urged women to speak up and fight back against sexual harassment.

“All of you Hollywood 'A-list' golden boys are LIARS,” she tweeted Tuesday.

“You lie,” she told Ben Affleck, alleging that the actor had known about Weinstein’s behavior for years. She attacked NBC, which quoted Weinstein saying he hoped for a second chance, for “being complicit in rape culture.” She demanded that Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, whose Amazon Studios has worked with Weinstein, “stop funding rapists, alleged pedo[phile]s and sexual harassers.”

Her crusade has resonated with women, who have used the hashtag #ROSEARMY to share their own stories online.

“She's been raising this red flag for a long time,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder and co-executive director of women’s advocacy group UltraViolet. “Everything about this story, every positive thing that will come of it, is a direct result of Rose and the other survivors being willing to come forward.”

Actress Stephanie Allynne, who stars on the Amazon show “One Mississippi,” said McGowan’s “energy and approach speaks to my soul.”

“I’m so with her,” she said. “It’s not a bunch of safe, well-constructed statements that are just a snoozefest — it’s anger, passion and justice. I love how she is naming names.”

Those who know McGowan, 44, described her as a strong-willed, passionate individual unafraid of authority or the status quo.

“She has one of the strongest voices I know,” Alyssa Milano, who co-starred with McGowan on the WB series “Charmed,” told The Times. “I am so proud of the resolve and leadership Rose has shown throughout this vile situation.”

McGowan declined to be interviewed, but in a 2015 Buzzfeed profile, she said: “I was born with a fist up.”

She was, in fact, born into an unconventional situation: Her parents were members of the polygamous Children of God cult, and McGowan was raised in the cult’s Italy chapter until escaping through a cornfield when she was 9. After moving to the U.S., she ran away at 13 and lived a transient punk lifestyle until she was “discovered” on a curb in Los Angeles.

McGowan is perhaps best known as the petite, raven-haired actress who played Paige Matthews for five seasons on “Charmed,” which ended in 2006. She made waves in 1998 when she wore one of the most memorable red carpet outfits ever to the MTV VMAs: a barely-there beaded dress with a leopard G-string. Her boyfriend at the time, goth rocker Marilyn Manson, coordinated with a shiny leopard-print suit.

Still, she struggled with that seductive image. In her upcoming memoir, “Brave,” McGowan details her life as a young Hollywood starlet grappling with the “personal nightmare of constant exposure.”

“The Hollywood machine packaged her as a sexualized bombshell, hijacking her image and identity and marketing them for their profit,” according to publisher HarperOne. “Hollywood expected Rose to be silent and cooperative and to stay the path. Instead, she rebelled and asserted her true identity and voice.”

That voice is finally being heard. McGowan has received an outpouring of support and admiration in the entertainment industry, including from Jessica Chastain, Mark Ruffalo, Lena Dunham and Amber Tamblyn, who tweeted: “I see you. We all do.”

In a follow-up interview with The Times, Tamblyn said, “Now that we have collectively spoken, we can never go back.”

McGowan even sparked a 24-hour Twitter boycott among women and a slew of celebrities on Friday, after the microblogging platform temporarily suspended her account the day before for violating its rules. Twitter later explained that the suspension was because McGowan had tweeted someone’s phone number.

Within a few hours, McGowan’s account was reinstated and she continued her rapid-fire tweets, a move that UltraViolet’s Thomas called “strategically valuable.”

I've the bold and italics above.

More here.

Lisa Kennedy Montgomery: Gwyneth Paltrow Is a 'Complicit Fraud' in #HarveyWeinstein Allegations (VIDEO)

It's Kennedy, at Fox Business channel, via Instapundit, "MOST OF THEM ARE. IT’S A ROTTEN SYSTEM FULL OF ROTTEN PEOPLE: Gwyneth Paltrow is a ‘complicit fraud’ in Weinstein allegations: Kennedy. And deep down, they know it, which is why they try so hard to posture as morally superior."

The YouTube video is here. Maybe Weinstein will get some "jail-style justice," heh: "Harvey Weinstein will hopefully end up in jail: Kennedy."

.@KennedyNation How many victims were minted while actors and politicians all sat on their manicured hands with their mouths sewn shut? pic.twitter.com/E002wpAUFA

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) October 12, 2017

Democrats Dogged by #HarveyWeinstein Cash

A great piece, at Politico, "Democrats dogged by Weinstein cash: The party tries to move past the sordid story, but Republicans aren't letting it go just yet."

Democrats hope to wash their hands of their ties to Harvey Weinstein. But Republicans aren't letting go just yet https://t.co/EIOkZKIpLE pic.twitter.com/bzqHJiXIw4

— POLITICO (@politico) October 12, 2017

Rose McGowan Photos

Following-up, "Rose McGowan."

At Heckler Spray, "Rose McGowan Nudes Leaked Again – Yes, They’re Right Here (57 PICS)":

What do you like about Rose McGowan? Her pale milky skin? Sexy full lips? Her raven bangs? Perfectly sized natural boobs? Yes, we thought so.

'SO JUST IN THE LAST FEW DAYS, two major centers of the anti-Trump resistance, Hollywood and the NFL, have collapsed...'

From Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "Harvey Weinstein has destroyed Hollywood. Now what?"

BONUS: "TOWARD A UNIFIED THEORY OF CONTEMPORARY INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE."

Rose McGowan

This lady is rad!

pic.twitter.com/WYW7r4d9ui

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 11, 2017

Ben Affleck fuck off

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 10, 2017

The hole that @rosemcgowan just punched into @BenAffleck’s statement can be seen from distant galaxies pic.twitter.com/RQepXBu5Z2

— Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) October 10, 2017

Actress Rose McGowan calls for entire Weinstein Company board to resign https://t.co/9221jycAG1 pic.twitter.com/GkpdB4TiZU

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) October 10, 2017

Rose McGowan tells Ben Affleck to 'f*** off' after the actor finally breaks his silence to condemn Weinstein https://t.co/cK6cYrg2rN pic.twitter.com/t8nc4PPddO

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) October 10, 2017

Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette, and Asia Argento Share Their Accounts of Harvey Weinstein's Sexual Assault and Harassment

It's from Ronan Farrow, at the New Yorker. He's leftist. The New Yorker's leftist. I don't like them. But this story is irresistible, and it's leftist outlets leading the charge against Democrat/Hollywood hypocrisy. It's pretty amazing.

Safe link, "From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories":

! NYer Weinstein story just dropped, 3 women alleging rape + audio recording of Weinstein from NYPD sting operation https://t.co/EtDsJ1XWvj

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) October 10, 2017

Since the establishment of the first studios a century ago, there have been few movie executives as dominant, or as domineering, as Harvey Weinstein. As the co-founder of the production-and-distribution companies Miramax and the Weinstein Company, he helped to reinvent the model for independent films, with movies such as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “The English Patient,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Crying Game,” “Shakespeare in Love,” and “The King’s Speech.” Beyond Hollywood, he has exercised his influence as a prolific fund-raiser for Democratic Party candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Weinstein combined a keen eye for promising scripts, directors, and actors with a bullying, even threatening, style of doing business, inspiring both fear and gratitude. His movies have earned more than three hundred Oscar nominations, and, at the annual awards ceremonies, he has been thanked more than almost anyone else in movie history, just after Steven Spielberg and right before God.

For more than twenty years, Weinstein has also been trailed by rumors of sexual harassment and assault. This has been an open secret to many in Hollywood and beyond, but previous attempts by many publications, including The New Yorker, to investigate and publish the story over the years fell short of the demands of journalistic evidence. Too few people were willing to speak, much less allow a reporter to use their names, and Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements, monetary payoffs, and legal threats to suppress these myriad stories. Asia Argento, an Italian film actress and director, told me that she did not speak out until now—Weinstein, she told me, forcibly performed oral sex on her—because she feared that Weinstein would “crush” her. “I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento said. “That’s why this story—in my case, it’s twenty years old; some of them are older—has never come out.”

Last week, the New York Times, in a powerful report by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, revealed multiple allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein, a story that led to the resignation of four members of his company’s all-male board, and to Weinstein’s firing from the company.

The story, however, is more complex, and there is more to know and to understand. In the course of a ten-month investigation, I was told by thirteen women that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them, allegations that corroborate and overlap with the Times’ revelations, and also include far more serious claims.

Three women—among them Argento and a former aspiring actress named Lucia Evans—told me that Weinstein raped them, allegations that include Weinstein forcibly performing or receiving oral sex and forcing vaginal sex. Four women said that they experienced unwanted touching that could be classified as an assault. In an audio recording captured during a New York Police Department sting operation in 2015 and made public here for the first time, Weinstein admits to groping a Filipina-Italian model named Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, describing it as behavior he is “used to.” Four of the women I interviewed cited encounters in which Weinstein exposed himself or masturbated in front of them.

Sixteen former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein’s companies told me that they witnessed or had knowledge of unwanted sexual advances and touching at events associated with Weinstein’s films and in the workplace. They and others describe a pattern of professional meetings that were little more than thin pretexts for sexual advances on young actresses and models. All sixteen said that the behavior was widely known within both Miramax and the Weinstein Company. Messages sent by Irwin Reiter, a senior company executive, to Emily Nestor, one of the women who alleged that she was harassed at the company, described the “mistreatment of women” as a serial problem that the Weinstein Company was struggling with in recent years. Other employees described what was, in essence, a culture of complicity at Weinstein’s places of business, with numerous people throughout the companies fully aware of his behavior but either abetting it or looking the other way. Some employees said that they were enlisted in subterfuge to make the victims feel safe. A female executive with the company described how Weinstein assistants and others served as a “honeypot”—they would initially join a meeting, but then Weinstein would dismiss them, leaving him alone with the woman.

Virtually all of the people I spoke with told me that they were frightened of retaliation. “If Harvey were to discover my identity, I’m worried that he could ruin my life,” one former employee told me. Many said that they had seen Weinstein’s associates confront and intimidate those who crossed him, and feared that they would be similarly targeted. Four actresses, including Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette, told me they suspected that, after they rejected Weinstein’s advances or complained about them to company representatives, Weinstein had them removed from projects or dissuaded people from hiring them. Multiple sources said that Weinstein frequently bragged about planting items in media outlets about those who spoke against him; these sources feared that they might be similarly targeted. Several pointed to Gutierrez’s case, in 2015: after she went to the police, negative items discussing her sexual history and impugning her credibility began rapidly appearing in New York gossip pages. (In the taped conversation with Gutierrez, Weinstein asks her to join him for “five minutes,” and warns, “Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes.”)

Several former employees told me that they were speaking about Weinstein’s alleged behavior now because they hoped to protect women in the future. “This wasn’t a one-off. This wasn’t a period of time,” an executive who worked for Weinstein for many years told me. “This was ongoing predatory behavior towards women—whether they consented or not.”

It’s likely that women have recently felt increasingly emboldened to talk about their experiences because of the way the world has changed regarding issues of sex and power. These disclosures follow in the wake of stories alleging sexual misconduct by public figures, including Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, and Donald Trump. In October, 2016, a month before the election, a tape emerged of Trump telling a celebrity-news reporter, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. . . . Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” This past April, O’Reilly, a host at Fox News, was forced to resign after Fox was discovered to have paid five women millions of dollars in exchange for silence about their accusations of sexual harassment. Ailes, the former head of Fox News, resigned last July, after he was accused of sexual harassment. Cosby went on trial this summer, charged with drugging and sexually assaulting a woman. The trial ended with a hung jury.

On October 5th, in an initial effort at damage control, Weinstein responded to the Times piece by issuing a statement partly acknowledging what he had done, saying, “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” In an interview with the New York Post, he said, “I’ve got to deal with my personality, I’ve got to work on my temper, I have got to dig deep. I know a lot of people would like me to go into a facility, and I may well just do that—I will go anywhere I can learn more about myself.” Weinstein went on, “In the past I used to compliment people, and some took it as me being sexual, I won’t do that again.” In his statement to the Times, Weinstein claimed that he would “channel that anger” into a fight against the leadership of the National Rifle Association. He also said that it was not “coincidental” that he was organizing a foundation for women directors at the University of Southern California. “It will be named after my mom and I won’t disappoint her.”
Sallie Hofmeister, a spokesperson for Weinstein, issued a statement in response to the allegations in this article. It reads in full: “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual. Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that, if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.”

While Weinstein and his representatives have said that the incidents were consensual, and were not widespread or severe, the women I spoke to tell a very different story.

Keep reading.

Chelsea Clinton Weighs In on Harvey Weinstein

At Twitchy, "Chelsea Clinton gets TORCHED after sharing thread criticizing politicization of Harvey Weinstein."

She tweeted leftist asshat Jedd Legum, of Think Progress infamy. Those people are the biggest assholes over there, and Chelsea's a bleedin' idiot.

7. FACT: Most of the folks talking about Weinstein on the far right don't even believe sexual harassment is a problem

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 7, 2017