Ben Carson at CPAC, Photo: Simon Zachary Chetrit for Gawker
Ben Carson has finally admitted defeat, announcing Friday that he’ll abandon his presidential campaign to take a job with a Christian group dedicated to getting out the vote.
The group, My Faith Votes, named Carson as its new chairman a few hours before Carson was scheduled to give a speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Carson, who took the stage more than half-an-hour late, spoke for more than ten minutes on the evils of big government and Lucifer, before announcing he’s “leaving the campaign trail.”
“I did the math and I realized it simply wasn’t going to happen,” Carson explained.
Calling his almost-ran an “experience I will never forget,” he drew a standing ovation from the crowd.
“Even though I might be leaving the campaign trail, I will still continue to be heavily involved,” Carson said.
Ted Cruz today spent a chunk of his time onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference wistfully recalling how muscular and sexy he looked in a photoshopped poster.
Cruz was onstage with Sean Hannity bragging about having “put out a meme” when he remembered, fondly, the time someone photoshopped him to make him look hot.
“I was out traveling to California. And the week before I arrive in California, these posters began appearing all over town. They were posters of my head on a shirtless body... It was ripped. Covered in tattoos,” Cruz said, rolling the words around in his mouth. “A giant eagle on my chest... Two six-shooters on my abs, which were a perfect eight-pack... Winston Churchill on my right bicep, which was MASSIVE. A cigarette dangling out of my mouth, and above it, the legend: Blacklisted and loving it.”
Cruz, who repeated many of his talking points (“strict constitutionalist,” “bill of rights,” “Christian values”), ended with a familiar joke.
“I have to say,” Cruz said. “I noticed a glaring error: I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
In two sworn depositions, unsealed Thursday, Donald Trump admitted that he had nothing at all to do with choosing the Trump University instructors, presented for years as his “hand-picked” representatives, who purported to impart his secret knowledge, itself born of years of experience and a Wharton education.
The two depositions—one given in December, in New York; the other in Las Vegas, in January—were taken in the course of a class-action suit that has been filed against Trump in California by four former Trump University students.
The plaintiffs in the class-action suit allege (as does New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, in a separate case) that Donald Trump, and Trump University, exploited people, capitalizing on the Trump brand to fleece unwitting students out of thousands of dollars, starting with a free, 90-minute seminar that was actually just an up-sell for a series of increasingly expensive Trump-branded programs. The New York suit estimates Trump University bilked several thousand people out of some $40 million.
Recently, Trump has suggested in stump speeches and on the debate stage that the lawyers bringing the class-action suit against him are trying to get one of the plaintiffs, Tarla Makaeff, off the case. “The person that started the suit wrote a great statement saying it was fantastic and did a film clip saying that it was fantastic and they just asked that she be taken out of the case. She doesn’t want to be in the case anymore,” he said at a rally in Arkansas last month. “So, they put in a motion, which the papers don’t write this, they put in a motion saying to take her—her name is “Tarloff” or something—take her out of the case. The reason they want her out of the case is she is a horrible, horrible, witness.”
Actually, the reason that Makaeff wants to “withdraw as class representative and named plaintiff,” as her February 8 motion states, is because Trump has used every means at his disposal to target her, in both the media and the courts. Since requesting the court’s permission to withdraw, a memo filed by Makaeff’s lawyers states, Trump has designated former acquaintances of hers as witnesses (which his lawyers have apparently not done for any of the three other class representatives) and argued in court documents that attacking Makaeff personally is the central focus of his defense “going so far as to say it ‘would cripple Defendants’ ability to defend this case’ if they cannot make these attacks against one of the 7,000 student-victims taken in by Trump’s scheme.” That is to say: Trump’s defense has been to try to make the focus on one class representative out of four, who in turn represent 7,000 people allegedly exploited by Trump University.
“Understandably, Makaeff wants her life back without living in fear of being disparaged by Trump on national television,” the memo states. “For Makaeff’s well-being and the dignity of these proceedings, the Court should grant her motion to withdraw.”
Early in the first deposition, the prosecution reads Trump a list of names of Trump University “live events instructors”—Trump’s “hand-picked” real estate experts. They wanted to know if he could confirm that any of them had, in fact, worked for Trump University, but in response to each, Trump says it’s been too many years, and he can’t remember who they are. In response to a question about whether he remembered one particular instructor, Don Sexton, Trump said, “I remember the name, but it’s many years ago. I’d have to check the facts.” Don Sexton, a professor of business at Columbia University, wrote two books for Trump University: Trump University: Marketing 101 andTrump University: Branding 101. The forward and first chapter of the latter were written by Donald Trump.
In fact, Trump admitted that he never did anything to certify the Trump University mentors at all. (“Me personally? No.”) Nor did he do anything to confirm their expertise or qualifications. One former instructor declared that he knew barely anything about real estate when Trump University hired him. “He defrauded us, okay?” Trump said. “Sue him.”
What Trump did do was give instructors copies of the books that the real estate developer from Queens had written. As The Intercept’s Leighton Woodhouse points out, “In other words, students who paid as much as $60,000 to Trump University over the course of a year could have gotten the exact same information through a $10 book purchased on Amazon.”
In the second deposition, the plaintiff’s lawyers ask Trump about a pair of blog posts he wrote in March 2008 praising Bill and Hillary Clinton. In March 2008, he wrote, “I know Hillary, and I think she would make a great president or vice president.” More recently, of course, Trump has denigrated Hillary Clinton’s qualifications. He explained this by saying that at the time, he didn’t really think much about politics, or politicians, except to compliment them and get them on his good side. These days, “I’ve really started to watch and study politics as opposed to just thinking about business and not thinking about politics.”
“You want to always be friendly with politicians. If you’re a businessman, I’m a businessman, you always—you want to be as nice as you can to politicians whenever possible,” Trump testified. “You would rather have them on your side, politicians. When you’re in business, you would like to have the politicians on your side.” (We can only speculate why Trump did not bring this kind of magnanimity to his relationship with President Obama.)
The plaintiff’s lawyers also submitted a sworn statement from Corinne Sommer, who worked for Trump University from May 2007 to October 2007 as the manager of the Events Department. Sommer made her statement in September 2012, in support of the plaintiff’s class certification, and states her willingness to testify on their behalf:
I do not believe that Trump University taught Donald Trump’s investing “secrets.” Donald Trump came from a wealthy family and had resources at his disposal to purchase real estate—that is the secret—one that the average consumer could not replicate.
In a deposition later that year, Sommer testified that she had been fired from her position at Trump University because she was a military reservist. After she was fired, she sued Trump University, and they allegedly settled out of court.
Another recent court filing includes the transcript of one of those free, 90-minute seminars. The instructor, Keith Sperry, begins the seminar by asking participants questions about Donald Trump’s life. Those who answered his questions received a lottery ticket, as a reward.
“Which one is more expensive,” Sperry asked the crowd. “Being trained by Donald Trump, or the school of Hard Knocks?”
“Being trained by the school of Hard Knocks,” the crowd responded.
“Does that makes sense?” Sperry asked. “Yes,” they said.
A British contrarian blogger and actual full-grown baby put up a stink about his personal Twitter account at the White House on Friday, showing us all that even misogynistic, fame-thirsty opportunists have feelings, too.
Milo Yiannopolous, a Gamergate antagonist, Breitbart columnist and longtime troll, showed up at a White House press briefing hell-bent on getting an answer from press secretary Josh Earnest. The demand? Make Twitter pay for pilfering his precious blue checkmark.
Yiannopolous’ Twitter verification was removed last January, after Twitter said he’d violated their rules. It’s not clear what exactly triggered the move, but it could have been when he told another user, “You deserve to be harassed.”
For most people, the loss of a Twitter badge would be a moment to take stock about the meaningful things in life, to ask oneself, “Why do I care about this little inconsequential checkmark so much?” For Yiannopolous, it’s impetus to make a heart-wrenching appeal about the nature of free speech, and Twitter, and when he will get his badge back:
“It’s becoming very clear that Twitter and Facebook in particular are censoring and punishing conservative and libertarian points of view. Is there anything the president can do to encourage Silicon Valley to remind them of the critical importance of open free speech in our society?....You obviously can’t enforce the First Amendment on private corporations. But there seems to be a very clear trend My verification check was taken away for making fun of the wrong group of people. Conservative commentators and journalists are being punished, being suspended, having their tweets deleted by Twitter. Facebook is removing criticism of immigration in Europe.”
Yiannopolous also blogged about the incident at Breitbart, lamenting the “ever-dismaying bulwark against left-wing efforts to curb free speech.”
Unfortunately for all users of the internet, the checkmark is gone for good, but his account is not. For now, we must all endure the ravenous, attention-seeking garbage it spews forth.
Gunnar glasses, tax software, and a Lodge grill pan kick off Saturday’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more.
Range extenders can’t work miracles, but if a corner of your house just doesn’t quite get acceptable Wi-Fi reception, this little gadget can probably do enough to help. [TP-LINK AC750 Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender, $35]
As long as you don’t mind buying a refurb, this is probably the best Xbox One deal we’ve ever seen. You even get a Kinect! [Refurb Xbox One Console with Kinect and Four Games, $305]
Sphero’s remote-controlled BB-8 droid was one of the coolest toys ever made when it first came out, and it’s stillimproving to this day! Today on eBay, you can buy your own for 130 portions dollars, or $20 less than usual. [Sphero BB-8, $130]
While there are obviously cheaper ways to shave, this $3 discount on a Gillette Fusion Proglide might be tempting if you want to take the infamous Flexball out for a spin. You even get two razor refills in the package, which Gillette claims are good for a month of shaving each. [Gillette Fusion Proglide, $7. Clip the $3 coupon]
Anytime you can get an 8-pack of Panasonic’s class-leading Eneloop AA rechargeable batteries for under $20, I recommend you take advantage. [Eneloop AA 8-Pack, $19]
If you need a charger, this 4-pack includes one for $16, which is its usual price. You might also want to pick up some C and D spacers to get even more use out of your AAs.
Apple device owners know that you can never own too many Lightning cables, and $8 for a 2-pack is about as good a deal as we ever see on them. [2-Pack RAVPower Lightning Cables, $8 with code NM3K582E]
For a limited time, Amazon will give you a $25 account credit when you spend $50 on eligible “luxury” beauty and grooming supplies. Included items run the spectrum from shaving gear to lotions to makeup, and that’s just for starters, so chances are, you won’t have any trouble filling your cart. Just be sure to use promo code LUX25BACK at checkout to get the account credit. [$25 Amazon account credit with $50 luxury grooming purchase]
Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more, and don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter. We want your feedback.
Donald Trump does not play by the rules, whether it comes to finance, marriage, and the general standards of human decency. Why, then, would we expect him to obey the rules of a presidential debate?
According to CNN’s Dylan Byers, multiple sources have accused the Republican presidential candidate of violating the rules of last Thursday’s Republican debate by conferring with his campaign manager during commercial breaks—an action expressly forbidden by Fox News, which hosted the debate. The candidates had been explicitly told about the rules beforehand. From CNN:
While that exchange was the clearest violation of debate rules to date, the sources said, it followed a pattern: At multiple debates, Trump has consulted with his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski backstage even though it was expressly forbidden by the networks.
Thursday night’s debate in Detroit marked a new extreme, however, as Lewandowski went directly onto the stage to meet with Trump during the commercial break. As in previous debates, Fox News had explicitly informed the campaigns that candidates were not allowed to communicate with their campaign staff during commercial breaks, the sources said.
As is custom in dealing with Trump, the debate moderators threw their hands up and acquiesced. When they couldn’t force Lewandowski off the stage, they told the other candidates that campaign members could come on stage to give them advice, too.
Exactly what was said is unknown, though Byers adds that Trump gave the moderators a fax from the Better Business Bureau showing an “A” grade for Trump University—even though we all know this is simply not true.
But again, this is a man who can’t even resist cheating on a round of golf. What, for the love of all that is good and holy, do we expect?
Deep rumbles, unearthly moans, high pitched screeching: these are but a few elements of the alien soundscape researchers have now recorded for the first time at Challenger Deep, the deepest known valley on the seafloor.
One might expect Challenger Deep—which sits at the bottom of the Mariana trench some 36,000 feet beneath the ocean surface—to be a quiet place. But in reality, we know very little about what life is like down there: as with most places where the sun never shines, the Mariana trench is shrouded in mystery.
“Light does not propagate underwater very far,” oceanographer Bob Dziak of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told Gizmodo. “But sound waves travel long distances through the Earth’s oceans. Acoustics is really the best way to get a good picture of deep ocean environments.”
The propellor from a ship passing above makes quite a ruckus at Challenger Deep
Dziak would know. He’s the guy who led the recent effort to capture audio recordings from Challenger Deep. First, Dizak and his team had to design and build an instrument that could withstand the crushing 16,000 pounds-per-square-inch worth of pressure felt seven miles beneath the surface. Next, they developed a mooring system that would lower their audio gear—a titanium-encased hydrophone—at a slow, controlled speed, so that it could acclimate to the dramatic pressure buildup during its journey.
And after successfully planting a hydrophone in Challenger Deep, and making recordings for 23 straight days, Dziak’s team had to wait until November for the weather and ship traffic to clear so they could haul it back up. It was a major effort, but now, we’ve got the first soundbites from the deepest spot on the Earth’s surface to show for it.
They’re as haunting and otherworldly as you might imagine.
A baleen whale call recorded at Challenger Deep
Examples of odontocete (toothed whale or dolphin) and baleen whale calls
Challenger Deep, it turns out, is an echo chamber for a cacophony of noises produced by everything from ships to baleen whales to Earth itself. In one recording, the researchers even identified the ominous rustling of a category four typhoon whipping across the surface miles above. “I was surprised by just how cleanly we can record whales, ships, and all sorts of activity taking place at the surface,” Dziak noted.
A magnitude 5 earthquake rumbles near Challenger Deep on July 16th
A baleen whale vocalizing just before and after the magnitude 5 quake
Dziak hopes to return to Challenger Deep to capture more audio in the future. He’d also like to use his high-pressure hydrophone to explore other uncharted waters, including remote areas of the deep Arctic Ocean that are now starting to open up to ships as the ice caps retreat.
“It is akin to sending a deep-space probe to the outer solar system,” Dziak said. “We’re sending out a deep-ocean probe to the unknown reaches of inner space.”
“How would you spell that? L-Y-E-N, with a big apostrophe,” said Donald Trump, a man who is dangerously close to leading a country of 300 million.
The Republican presidential candidate made the error at a Wichita, Kansas—the same event which was advertised with a press release that misspelt both the words “Wichita” and “Kansas.” Trump himself fired off a tweet that was, characteristically, misspelled.
It’s not the first time the Trump campaign has misspelt the state he’s speaking in, either.
How, in this day in age, with the wondrous and easy-to-use technology of spell check, does this happen? Better question: how, in this day and age, with the illuminating power of higher education and human enlightenment, does Donald Trump happen?
“What I meant in saying that the article failed was that the interpretations at large by mainstream media virtually failed to see what the article was about ... It was a very good failure,” said Sean Penn, addressing his disastrous El Chapo profile published in Rolling Stone at a keynote address in Silicon Valley on Friday. A very good failure, indeed.
Several protesters were dragged out of a Donald Trump rally in New Orleans last night by his security personnel. Rally attendants yelled “all lives matter” and shoved them as they were being forcibly ejected.
“Secret service and Trump’s security team were part of that crew, but so were civilians, who were allowed to push, kick and shove the protesters,” says freelance reporter Amy K. Nelson who captured this video from inside the crowd at Lakefront Airport.
“I personally witnessed a black woman, a white woman and Asian man get shoved down to the ground (they were not falling on purpose like one reporter claimed),” says Nelson. The protesters were chanting “Black Lives Matter!” and many were part of BYP100NOLA. The video starts in the middle of the shoving incidents. “The crowd was chanting ‘All Lives Matter!’ and the protesters were fighting back against the civilians who were putting their hands on them. It was state sanctioned by the cops and security. A free-for-all, essentially. It was distressing.”
Thanh Truong from MY54 reports that Donald Trump was directing security to remove protesters while his supporters cheered and the violent cycle repeated several times throughout the night. “Get them!” Trump cheered.
“I’m told that the cops shut down the street around 5 p.m., an hour before rally started)” says Nelson. “A group of people ran through to walk up the street to at least get outside the venue. They wouldn’t let many of the protesters into the venue itself, saying they were at capacity, which just wasn’t true. There was a second line there. They played music and protested and after the rally many protesters stood right outside the exit. Trump supporters were antagonistic and it was very vile. They got into it, on both sides. I’m very surprised it didn’t result in more violence. This is a powder keg.”
Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck is under investigation for allegedly threatening to kill Donald Trump with a knife.
According to CBS, the Secret Service is following up with an investigation for comments made by Beck on his radio program last week. Beck asserts that the comments were jokes, and that he never meant to actually threaten the Republican presidential candidate. Another radio host tweeted that the Secret Service visited the office of The Blaze, which hosts Beck’s show.
The incident began during his show on Friday, when Beck was answering his own rhetorical question, “Would you vote for Donald Trump if he is the nominee?” He responded in conversation with his producer by expressing an urge that many have felt, but few dared to speak its name:
“If I was close enough and I had a knife. Really. I mean the stabbing just wouldn’t stop.”
Stu Burguiere, the head writer of The Glenn Beck Program, said on Twitter that the comments were directed at him, not at Trump.
Louis C.K. sent out a newsletter to fans about his latest episode of Horace and Pete on Saturday, and it came with one hell of a post script.
Watching the results from Super Tuesday roll in, and the subsequent GOP debate where Donald Trump made millions think about his penis, freaked everyone the fuck out. Look, even Miley Cyrus is deep in it:
Louis C.K. obviously felt it was time to step slightly to the side of his brand, and come out as a guy with strong opinions about things. Don’t worry, he still rambles and tries to play his rant as a semi-neutral, humorous life observation. After advertising his show, he adds:
P.S. Please stop it with voting for Trump. It was funny for a little while. But the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the 30s. Do you think they saw the shit coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all.
Louis claims he isn’t gunning for either Democratic candidate. In fact, he wants a conservative candidate in there, because fair is fair and everybody used to play fair in the good ole days:
And I’m not advocating for Hillary or Bernie. I like them both but frankly I wish the next president was a conservative only because we had Obama for eight years and we need balance. And not because I particularly enjoy the conservative agenda. I just think the government should reflect the people. And we are about 40 percent conservative and 40 percent liberal. When I was growing up and when I was a younger man, liberals and conservatives were friends with differences. They weren’t enemies. And it always made sense that everyone gets a president they like for a while and then hates the president for a while. But it only works if the conservatives put up a good candidate. A good smart conservative to face the liberal candidate so they can have a good argument and the country can decide which way to go this time.
Trump is not that. He’s an insane bigot. He is dangerous.
He expands for a long while on all the well-documented lies and aggressive attacks that have come from Trump, for example calling JohnMcCain a coward for being captured and held in a POW camp. Absurdities upon absurdities upon more absurdities that Trump supporters do not give a shit about. But Louis C. K. relates to the impulse to listen to Donald Trump, and talk about Donald Trump, as he himself is compulsively doing:
I get that all these people sound like bullshit soft criminal opportunists. The whole game feels rigged and it’s not going anywhere but down anymore. I feel that way sometimes.
And that voting for Trump is a way of saying “fuck it. Fuck them all”. I really get it. It’s a version of national Suicide. Or it’s like a big hit off of a crack pipe. Somehow we can’t help it. Or we know that if we vote for Trump our phones will be a reliable source of dopamine for the next four years. I mean I can’t wait to read about Trump every day. It’s a rush. But you have to know this is not healthy.
Then he self-deprecatingly undermines everything he just said in classic C.K. style, ending on the very stark truth that Donald Trump is a sad, sad man.
That’s just my view. At least right now. I know I’m not qualified or particularly educated and I’m not right instead of you. I’m an idiot and I’m sure a bunch of you are very annoyed by this. Fucking celebrity with an opinion. I swear this isn’t really a political opinion. You don’t want to know my political opinions. (And I know that I’m only bringing myself trouble with this shit.) Trump has nothing to do with politics or ideology. He has to do with himself. And really I don’t mean to insult anyone. Except Trump. I mean to insult him very much. And really I’m not saying he’s evil or a monster. In fact I don’t think Hitler was. The problem with saying that guys like that are monsters is that we don’t see them coming when they turn out to be human, which they all are. Everyone is. Trump is a messed up guy with a hole in his heart that he tries to fill with money and attention. He can never ever have enough of either and he’ll never stop trying. He’s sick. Which makes him really really interesting. And he pulls you towards him which somehow feels good or fascinatingly bad. He’s not a monster. He’s a sad man.
A sad man who wants to watch the world burn. Check out Horace and Pete at louisck.net.
Original photo by Elizabeth Frantz, photoshop by Reddit user Syokk
Uh oh. Remember when Donald Trump called Marco Rubio “Little Marco” in the last debate? Well, now the internet is having a field day with this real photo of Marco Rubio sitting in a gigantic chair.
The original photo is from back in August 26, 2015 when Rubio was visiting a furniture store in Franklin, New Hampshire.
Original photo by Elizabeth Frantz
Photoshop by Reddit user Syokk
Of course, they’re not all necessarily mean. Some are silly photoshops of Rubio in nerdy movies.
Photoshop by i_am_a_bot_amaPhotoshop by HORSE_SIZED_DICKPhotoshop by Reddit user dystopika
But yeah, this is getting meme’d to death right now. If you’d like to make your own, please include them in the comments below.
Also, I’m not sure what’s going on here...
But Twitter user Darth has helpfully found the “original”:
Totally not photoshopped image of Donald Trump’s hands and feet, found by @Darth on Twitter
Now if only someone could Photoshop an image of Donald Trump using a computer.
Thousands of supporters line up to stare adoringly at their supreme leader, who, without reproach, spews forth racist mantras from his hateful, angry mouth. They raise their right hands to salute, blindly following their führer.
Following allegations made in February 2015 by a woman who claimed she carried on a lengthy affair with then-Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan, the university conducted an investigation into his conduct and concluded in May that Ryan did not misuse university resources. According to a statement from university chancellor Rebecca Blank, Ryan’s unexpected resignation seven months later was “entirely his decision.”
After announcing in June 2015 that he would retire upon the conclusion of the 2015-16 basketball season, Ryan resigned suddenly on December 15, 2015. The most commonly given explanation was that Ryan retired early to give longtime assistant Greg Gard a leg up on securing the permanent job.
Since well before his resignation, Madison has been awash in rumors of Ryan’s infidelity. This rumor mill was sent into overdrive when athletic director Barry Alvarez revealed that Ryan brought two attorneys to a meeting hours before he resigned. Throughout the course of reporting this story, we received over 60 tips, the vast majority alleging that infidelity on Ryan’s part ultimately led to his resignation.
Deadspin submitted a public records request to the university for a variety of records related to Ryan. One of the records we obtained was an email sent on February 11, 2015, to Ryan, senior athletics department officials Walter Dickey, Terry Gawlik, and Bruce Van De Velde, and chancellor Rebecca Blank.
In the email, a woman wrote that she had recently broken off a nearly six-year-long affair with Ryan, calling him “manipulative, a liar, cheater and deceptive,” and unworthy of representing the university.
In her email, the woman says that Ryan’s family eventually became aware of the affair. Seven minutes after the email was sent, Ryan forwarded it from his iPhone to his wife, Kelly.
The woman claimed that Ryan told her that he loved her, called her his “soul mate,” and said they would marry and have children one day. Eventually, despite his pleading, she broke off the relationship. She asserted that records on Ryan’s university-issued communication devices would confirm her story, and that she had accompanied Ryan on a number of recruiting trips, implying that Ryan spent university resources on her during those trips. At the time, Ryan was the highest-paid public employee in the state of Wisconsin.
The woman’s motivation for alerting university officials, she wrote, was a belief that Ryan was unfit to serve as a role model for the university, or as its representative.
On Friday, Deadspin contacted the university for comment on the woman’s email. They provided us with a May 13, 2015 letter signed by vice chancellor of legal affairs Raymond Taffora and deputy athletic director Walter Dickey, and addressed to the woman.
The letter is a summary of an investigation into the claims the woman made in her email, focused upon her implication that Ryan spent university resources to pay for her to accompany him on recruiting trips, and her allegations that he mistreated her. The university was unable to substantiate either allegation.
In the letter, Taffora and Dickey wrote that Ryan informed the athletics department of their relationship on December 2, 2014, two months before her email. After Ryan’s revelation he was interviewed twice by members of the athletic department, and despite the fact that “at that time there was no suggestion that any University policies were violated ... [Ryan] stated that University resources were not used inappropriately.”
After the woman’s February 2015 email, the university interviewed her, as well as Ryan two more times. Any text messages that may have been exchanged or voicemails left for Ryan no longer existed, but the university told her that they did review all emails exchanged between the two since 2009, all expenses submitted by Ryan since 2009, and all men’s basketball team expenses since 2009. This review, the officials wrote, uncovered no wrongdoing upon Ryan’s part.
Deadspin obtained all expenses reports submitted by or on behalf of Bo Ryan between the summer of 2014 and his resignation, and we were able to partially reproduce the university’s investigation. Ryan went on recruiting trips in July 2014 to attend AAU tournaments in both Las Vegas and Chicago, according to expense reports he submitted. Both are cities the woman claimed she traveled to with Ryan. We found no indication in the official records that Ryan was reimbursed for any expenses other than his own, though our records are incomplete.
The university also investigated the woman’s claims that Ryan had mistreated her. She echoed this complaint during her interview with the university, but was apparently unable to offer any additional evidence of mistreatment beyond what she had stated in her email. Ryan denied her allegations, and the university found that, “there is an insufficient basis to warrant any further action at this time.”
The woman who sent the email didn’t respond to multiple phone calls, text messages, or emails requesting comment. We were unable to reach Bo Ryan, and his representatives didn’t respond to emails or phone calls.
University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank gave us the following statement:
In February, 2015, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received allegations related to the possible misuse of university resources and personal conduct of former Head Basketball Coach Bo Ryan. Prior to that Coach Ryan had disclosed to the university that he had had an improper personal relationship with a person unaffiliated with the university.
The university’s Office of Legal Affairs and the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics performed a thorough review after receiving this information. In this case, and in all others, the university takes conduct allegations seriously, reviews them thoroughly and takes action, when appropriate. These allegations did not involve any other member of the campus community beyond Bo Ryan.
The university determined on May 13, 2015 that Ryan did not utilize university resources during the course of the relationship in question. The university concluded the issue was a private matter. Bo Ryan’s resignation on Dec. 15, 2015 was entirely his decision.
You can read the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s full letter to the woman summarizing its investigation below:
Update (3:32 p.m.): Bo Ryan provided a statement to ESPN’s Andy Katz, calling his affair a “mistake” that was unrelated to his retirement, which was timed “intentionally to assure that Greg Gard got his hard-earned opportunity to coach the University of Wisconsin basketball team.” Ryan also said that after he informed the university about his affair, he “encouraged them to review any activity to assure them that no University resources were misused.”
Chrissie Thompson and Jessie Balmert of the Cincinnati Enquirer report that a campaign staffer for John Kasich, the governor of Ohio and fourth-place Republican presidential candidate, was fired today after the campaign learned he had been arrested late last year on domestic violence charges:
Blake Waggoner, Kasich for America’s 30-year-old deputy digital director and director of rapid response, went to work for the campaign in November, according to his LinkedIn profile. That same month, on Nov. 12, officers from theMetropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., arrested Waggoner after receiving a report ofa woman “screaming repeatedly ‘get off me,’” according to the police record. The woman Waggoner was with, who is not identified in the report, told police he choked her and punched her in the back.
Court records obtained by the newspaper suggest that Waggoner plead guilty to the charges, since he was able to enroll in a “diversion” program for first-time offenders who do so.
“The Kasich campaign found out about Waggoner’s arrest on Saturday afternoon, when an Enquirer reporter called seeking comment,” Thompson and Balmert added. “Waggoner was fired within a couple hours.” A spokeswoman for Kasich told the two reporters, “Obviously, this kind of behavior is abhorrent and completely unacceptable. We were unaware of the incident concerning Blake, and he is no longer an employee of the campaign.”
We’ve reached out to Waggoner for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
You can read the rest of the Enquirer’s report here.
At CPAC, shirts are red, people are very predominantly white and “blue lives” matter. From a record attendance of well over 10,000, here are a few portraits of people who paid between $70 and $5,000 to cheer wildly for Dinesh D’Souzas’ new movie trailer and boo about “the Donald Trumps of the left,” whoever they might be.
CPAC attendants in high patriotic fashions.Sheldon, 18, Molly, 18, and Hayden, 20, from Oregon.
Disclaimer: These is not meant to be a representative survey. Just some people. Anyway, they have some things they’d like to tell you.
Jennifer, 20: “I hope Trump doesn’t win.” Ani, 20: “I love Abraham Lincoln.”Wesley Foy, 20 from North Carolina. “The main reason I came to CPAC was to see [Trump]. I wanted to see all the candidates but mainly him. The only thing I’ll say about it, the whole KKK thing, he should have handled it better and denied it on the record. Towards racism, I can see how people have issue with that, but he won the Latino vote in Nevada. It’s not as if everyone is disagreeing with him. To say he’s racist, I wouldn’t go that far. He’s not afraid to speak out against them, illegal aliens.”Around the convention center, almost every conversation is about Trump in one way or another—his impact on the party, if he’ll clinch the nomination, the anger in the base at the elites of the conservative movement, the fractured nature of the big tent, etc. The majority of the Trump talk is hate. Ben from Maryland is for “sanity in America. Was hoping for Ben Carson. He thinks conservatively and behaves more presidential than the other candidates. Flamboyancy gets the attention and Rubio is now forced to win.” Dominic, 21. Ben, 21. “We’re sick of political correctness. [Trump] speaks off the cuff, no statements of political correctness.” “He’s a businessman, knows how to balance budget. I like his immigration plan, his plan for the Middle East. Ted Cruz is more radical on immigration than Trump, doesn’t wanna let the good ones come back.” Arianna, 18. “Liberals and Republicans are too in favor of big government. Libertarian is the best third way.”And now for some flair. Howard, 64. “Alcohol and tobacco are not scheduled drugs as of the CSA act 1970. Marijuana should be in the same place. Unscheduled, kick it to the states. Rick Perry was my first choice as he was strong on this issue. Trump is okay. The sheriff was a muffin head, 70% of my felony caseload involved crimes related to prohibition. It’s a destructive and immoral policy of course because of racism. I don’t want any kid in this country having a job option to sell.”Philip, 34. “He has built a campaign infrastructure that is vastly superior to the typical Republican campaign. He has built a successful business. Because he understands that, I support him. The excitement factor, finally we have a candidate that people outside the political process get excited about... The media does this with every conservative candidate, including Ronald Reagan, because he launched his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi in a Confederate cemetery. They said he was appealing to the old South. He hasn’t appealed to racists, you’d have a hard time doing what he’s done whether it’s George Ross, Randall Pinkett who won season 5 of the Apprentice... By virtue of where he is, what he’s gotten, he can’t be racist.”This is the first year Log Cabin Republicans were granted a full-fledged booth that appeared on the official CPAC map. Members of the “traditional” marriage group around the corner were calling them “a radical LGBT organization masquerading as conservatives.”It’s important to end by noting that there are A LOT of young people here, some as young as 18—college Republicans here for the activism seminar and the mingling.Feel the...
All photos are by Simon Zachary Chetrit for Gawker.
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