Since there is apparently no evidence that Lewis originated the rumor, it appears he is leveraging the supposed letter for personal and political reasons. Very close to the classic burden of proof fallacy, with a twist that makes it even more potent in politics: the sheriff is invoking the existence of a document he won’t produce, which shifts the burden onto Giordano to disprove something that has no publicly verifiable evidence. This is exactly how a rumor becomes a “fact‑shaped object.” Also, a classic sexualized rumor that spreads because it targets a woman in authority, not because of anything she did.
Belay that last suggestion. When I tried to donate, I got a message back that “This site cannot accept donations from the U.S.”. What does that imply?!?!
Searched a bit further, found Dear Julia bemoaning Spencer Pratt’s loss in California’s “suspect” elections.
It all traces back to Sinclair. That explains so much, and why this is not funny. At all. It's beyond a poorly reported story- it's about how a lot of powerful media people are jerking the reigns of our politics in the background. Is anyone here, including the Sun reporter, on the take?
Although I was pretty sure this smelled of a setup/smear from the gitgo, the mention of Sinclair involvement settled it. As Dale wrote, it is possible Giordano, in a moment of bad judgement, did send a photo to a trusted person only to be betrayed. Sad but it happens. Nonetheless, the rest of the story demonstrates the absolute dirtbag level of all others involved.
That story was bonkers. Back and forth, back and forth, about THE WRONG THING (to wit: "Does THIS LETTER exist?"). Nothing like, "Did she in fact send at least one such message?"
Like others, as soon as I saw the Sinclair name all my alarm bells went off (OK, OK, no alarm bells, but my eyebrows did jump and my eyeballs did roll).
Okay, so, where the heck has Christine Lavin been all my life? That's the tragedy here. I am, of course, well aware of Roy Cohn, being a native to the DMV and having read The Post most of my life. But since there are LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF SHITDICKS in this town, on a bad day, this could have been any of them. The sad truth, being of average intelligence and living around DC, amongst the people who make policy decisions that effect billions of people, is that you quickly discover most of them, while politically cunning, are incredibly stupid. To prove this, listen to the Nixon tapes, or a George W. Bush speech (leaving the current president out of the running here, even though he would act as the cherry in this postulation).
"Sinclair's executive chairman, David Smith, has been at the center of his own personal controversies. In 1996, Smith was arrested and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sex offense after committing a "perverted sex act" with a prostitute in a company-owned Mercedes."
It does seem like the most pertinent two issues of fact are: (1) do the alleged pictures exist? and (2) did she send them to the alleged recipients? She might have taken such pictures and provided them to a (formerly) trusted person. Or they might be AI fakes. Or they don't exist at all, and the "cease and desist letter" is itself an attempt to destroy her reputation witht he electorate.
If she sent them, that is pretty bad. Do we perceive it differently than we would if it were a male politician? Would it make a difference depending on the gender of the deputies? It seems like for a male politician, I think we would perceive it as a very rude attempt at dominance -- "look what I can force you to see." Whereas for a female politician, I think we are programmed to see it as desperate neediness.
Let's venture into the present-day journalistic weeds shall we? Collins’s piece is a textbook example of the siloed, process‑driven coverage that is all too endemic in today's news coverage --- and not, unfortunately, only by local and regional outlets. It's the --- let's call it, "safe," form of journalism --- cover the process, not the truth; journalism as stenography. And not to put too blunt a point on it --- the story virtually caricatures Sinclair’s editorial culture: the floating of--- but actual avoidance of --- the core untested allegation, the fixation on process over truth, and the reliance on official‑source ping‑pong --- all structural features of how Sinclair trains and incentivizes its newsrooms. And sadly, it's not an aberration. Can you say "bothsidism" and its companion, "false equivalency" -- especially in Trump and related coverage and by the former WaPo, while I'm casting aspersions: the same disease, just scaled up; a journalism model that treats the existence of a dispute or controversy as more newsworthy than the truth of the underlying facts or assertions.
The song is a "miniature" of Cohn's boorish and outrageous public behavior. What made it worse is that it was calculated, not casual as say, a sloppy drunk telling dirty jokes --- and not because he lacked self‑control. He was crude on purpose, as a tool of intimidation, dominance, and political theater. He understood that New York power culture rewarded audacity so he used vulgarity and shamlessness the way he used the law: as a weapon. The Trump doesn't fall far from the Cohn eh?
The part I didn’t get: Roy Cohn was the guest with no manners, but I wondered if the boyfriend was DJT. If not, who was the schmucky boyfriend who invited Roy Cohn? And who was looking up her skirt, given that Cohn was gay?
Looking up her skirt was a power move, having nothing to do with his personal titillation. He was sending a message to both the singer and the boyfriend that he had the power to do something crass (in addition to the food stuff) and they pretty much had to sit there and take it.
I'm older and I remember powerful men doing this type of thing, not for personal sexual reasons, but because it sent a message "I can do whatever I want to you and you cannot stop me." The message often was not aimed at the girl--she was unimportant--but at her escort. [I used the term girl deliberately. That is how women were seen back then. Powerless girls.]
Exactly right. And Chris's boyfriend was not schmucky in the least. Chris is a writer! A troubadour. Her boyfriend -- how he knew Cohn is irrelevant -- was giving her an experience. He was giving her a song, Audrey.
You've lost me. If my significant other routinely gave me such "gifts," I would certainly not look forward to the next one, and I'd start reconsidering the relationship.
So, if I understand correctly (and I’m still not sure I do), the boyfriend wanted Chris to have the opportunity to compose a song based on Chris’s having met one of the most odious characters in New York. It’s certainly an unusual gift!
It seems like this could have been summed up with “did not directly deny the allegations.” We’re left to imagine what’s in the not-cease-and-desist letter, which obviously exists. But probably does not say cease and desist in that order. So it’s not a lie. Wouldn’t Roy Cohn have simply advised her to deny and lie, and say something like “those deputies only wish I would send them nude pics, but I only send those to people who are hot.”
Cohn would not necessarily have had her only deny, but in his usual insidious way, counsel Giordano to propagate a rumor about Lewis based on maybe a half-truth, innuendo or isolated fact he came up with. His mentor, that prince of the Senate, Joe McCarthy, relied heavily on Cohn to dig up or invent negative, often deeply personal material to destroy political opponents, and Cohn went on to become a master at unearthing and using damaging information.
I have an idea. Why don't we all give up wearing clothes and become a nudist society? That way anyone who wants to send nude pics of themselves (ugh!) to others can do so. No more of this shit!
"The UK government has given tech giants like Apple and Google three months to implement system-wide, device-level controls that automatically detect and block nude images"
"Adults would still be permitted to view or share such imagery, but they would have to go through an age-verification process to deactivate the blocks"
My guess would be, she never sent anything, he heard a rumor and wrote a letter asking her to stop. She either never received the letter (intercepted by a staffer who thought it wasn’t something that needed her attention?) or has honestly forgotten because she wasn’t sending pics.
However, it’s fully possible that she did send pics just the way a male politician might and is now trying to cover everything up. He is cognizant of what’s in the record and doesn’t want any part of this mess, but he’s not going to lie or perjure for anybody either.
Right. There’s an infinite number of possibilities and the reporter could have seriously pared them down (or at least boxed her in if a record release would contradict her), but didn’t.
Great song. I thought at first she was singing about Trump, but then sang that he died two years later. A girl can dream!
I dismissed the possibility of Trump, because he doesn't drink. I was thinking Epstein.
Same here
Same here!
Since there is apparently no evidence that Lewis originated the rumor, it appears he is leveraging the supposed letter for personal and political reasons. Very close to the classic burden of proof fallacy, with a twist that makes it even more potent in politics: the sheriff is invoking the existence of a document he won’t produce, which shifts the burden onto Giordano to disprove something that has no publicly verifiable evidence. This is exactly how a rumor becomes a “fact‑shaped object.” Also, a classic sexualized rumor that spreads because it targets a woman in authority, not because of anything she did.
A quick search turned up a Delmarva Today piece in which Giordano denies ever sending pics.
https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2026/06/10/giordano-denies-report-of-inappropriate-photos-sent-to-deputies/90488707007/
Another quick search turned up her re-election campaign page. I made a donation.
Wouldn’t it be fun if Giordano’s campaign was suddenly flooded with donations from “outside agitators”, aka Gene’s readers?
Belay that last suggestion. When I tried to donate, I got a message back that “This site cannot accept donations from the U.S.”. What does that imply?!?!
Searched a bit further, found Dear Julia bemoaning Spencer Pratt’s loss in California’s “suspect” elections.
What?? OMG this is bizarre.
To me, the whole photo thing is beginning to like an internal dispute between two residents of dark side. No?
Very well could be, from what you said.
It all traces back to Sinclair. That explains so much, and why this is not funny. At all. It's beyond a poorly reported story- it's about how a lot of powerful media people are jerking the reigns of our politics in the background. Is anyone here, including the Sun reporter, on the take?
And btw, what IS in the last 1/3 of the story?
Although I was pretty sure this smelled of a setup/smear from the gitgo, the mention of Sinclair involvement settled it. As Dale wrote, it is possible Giordano, in a moment of bad judgement, did send a photo to a trusted person only to be betrayed. Sad but it happens. Nonetheless, the rest of the story demonstrates the absolute dirtbag level of all others involved.
That story was bonkers. Back and forth, back and forth, about THE WRONG THING (to wit: "Does THIS LETTER exist?"). Nothing like, "Did she in fact send at least one such message?"
Like others, as soon as I saw the Sinclair name all my alarm bells went off (OK, OK, no alarm bells, but my eyebrows did jump and my eyeballs did roll).
Yeah, but then there'd be pictures of clothed people going around.
(laughing) Ripe for AI disrobing!
Okay, so, where the heck has Christine Lavin been all my life? That's the tragedy here. I am, of course, well aware of Roy Cohn, being a native to the DMV and having read The Post most of my life. But since there are LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF SHITDICKS in this town, on a bad day, this could have been any of them. The sad truth, being of average intelligence and living around DC, amongst the people who make policy decisions that effect billions of people, is that you quickly discover most of them, while politically cunning, are incredibly stupid. To prove this, listen to the Nixon tapes, or a George W. Bush speech (leaving the current president out of the running here, even though he would act as the cherry in this postulation).
Christine Lavin has been around this area for decades.
"Sinclair's executive chairman, David Smith, has been at the center of his own personal controversies. In 1996, Smith was arrested and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sex offense after committing a "perverted sex act" with a prostitute in a company-owned Mercedes."
It does seem like the most pertinent two issues of fact are: (1) do the alleged pictures exist? and (2) did she send them to the alleged recipients? She might have taken such pictures and provided them to a (formerly) trusted person. Or they might be AI fakes. Or they don't exist at all, and the "cease and desist letter" is itself an attempt to destroy her reputation witht he electorate.
If she sent them, that is pretty bad. Do we perceive it differently than we would if it were a male politician? Would it make a difference depending on the gender of the deputies? It seems like for a male politician, I think we would perceive it as a very rude attempt at dominance -- "look what I can force you to see." Whereas for a female politician, I think we are programmed to see it as desperate neediness.
Hmmm.
Let's venture into the present-day journalistic weeds shall we? Collins’s piece is a textbook example of the siloed, process‑driven coverage that is all too endemic in today's news coverage --- and not, unfortunately, only by local and regional outlets. It's the --- let's call it, "safe," form of journalism --- cover the process, not the truth; journalism as stenography. And not to put too blunt a point on it --- the story virtually caricatures Sinclair’s editorial culture: the floating of--- but actual avoidance of --- the core untested allegation, the fixation on process over truth, and the reliance on official‑source ping‑pong --- all structural features of how Sinclair trains and incentivizes its newsrooms. And sadly, it's not an aberration. Can you say "bothsidism" and its companion, "false equivalency" -- especially in Trump and related coverage and by the former WaPo, while I'm casting aspersions: the same disease, just scaled up; a journalism model that treats the existence of a dispute or controversy as more newsworthy than the truth of the underlying facts or assertions.
I guessed because you recently mentioned him, and it clearly wasn't DJT given the venue and the drinks. Otherwise, I'd have had no clue.
All I can say is I'm left with a big fucking WTF myself after this column.
The song is a "miniature" of Cohn's boorish and outrageous public behavior. What made it worse is that it was calculated, not casual as say, a sloppy drunk telling dirty jokes --- and not because he lacked self‑control. He was crude on purpose, as a tool of intimidation, dominance, and political theater. He understood that New York power culture rewarded audacity so he used vulgarity and shamlessness the way he used the law: as a weapon. The Trump doesn't fall far from the Cohn eh?
The part I didn’t get: Roy Cohn was the guest with no manners, but I wondered if the boyfriend was DJT. If not, who was the schmucky boyfriend who invited Roy Cohn? And who was looking up her skirt, given that Cohn was gay?
Looking up her skirt was a power move, having nothing to do with his personal titillation. He was sending a message to both the singer and the boyfriend that he had the power to do something crass (in addition to the food stuff) and they pretty much had to sit there and take it.
I'm older and I remember powerful men doing this type of thing, not for personal sexual reasons, but because it sent a message "I can do whatever I want to you and you cannot stop me." The message often was not aimed at the girl--she was unimportant--but at her escort. [I used the term girl deliberately. That is how women were seen back then. Powerless girls.]
Exactly right. And Chris's boyfriend was not schmucky in the least. Chris is a writer! A troubadour. Her boyfriend -- how he knew Cohn is irrelevant -- was giving her an experience. He was giving her a song, Audrey.
You've lost me. If my significant other routinely gave me such "gifts," I would certainly not look forward to the next one, and I'd start reconsidering the relationship.
So, if I understand correctly (and I’m still not sure I do), the boyfriend wanted Chris to have the opportunity to compose a song based on Chris’s having met one of the most odious characters in New York. It’s certainly an unusual gift!
Wasn’t the lyric that he “pretended” to look up her skirt? Since I didn’t know who it was, that struck me as strange.
It seems like this could have been summed up with “did not directly deny the allegations.” We’re left to imagine what’s in the not-cease-and-desist letter, which obviously exists. But probably does not say cease and desist in that order. So it’s not a lie. Wouldn’t Roy Cohn have simply advised her to deny and lie, and say something like “those deputies only wish I would send them nude pics, but I only send those to people who are hot.”
Cohn would not necessarily have had her only deny, but in his usual insidious way, counsel Giordano to propagate a rumor about Lewis based on maybe a half-truth, innuendo or isolated fact he came up with. His mentor, that prince of the Senate, Joe McCarthy, relied heavily on Cohn to dig up or invent negative, often deeply personal material to destroy political opponents, and Cohn went on to become a master at unearthing and using damaging information.
That, too, certainly.
I have an idea. Why don't we all give up wearing clothes and become a nudist society? That way anyone who wants to send nude pics of themselves (ugh!) to others can do so. No more of this shit!
...And Trump would insist that he is wearing the best clothes, clothes that nobody has ever seen before.
All hail Emperor Trump and his new wardrobe!!!
"The UK government has given tech giants like Apple and Google three months to implement system-wide, device-level controls that automatically detect and block nude images"
"Adults would still be permitted to view or share such imagery, but they would have to go through an age-verification process to deactivate the blocks"
Is it possible that AI-generated nude images of Julie were circulated among deputies without her knowledge?
Well, sure. But please read her responses. They are very couched and qualified.
My guess would be, she never sent anything, he heard a rumor and wrote a letter asking her to stop. She either never received the letter (intercepted by a staffer who thought it wasn’t something that needed her attention?) or has honestly forgotten because she wasn’t sending pics.
However, it’s fully possible that she did send pics just the way a male politician might and is now trying to cover everything up. He is cognizant of what’s in the record and doesn’t want any part of this mess, but he’s not going to lie or perjure for anybody either.
The reporter should have asked.
Or, of course, sent a picture to someone she trusted in her personal life, and it was then propagated. . .
There is so much talk about the exact wording (or not) of everything in this story. "It depends on your definition of what 'is' is. . ."
Right. There’s an infinite number of possibilities and the reporter could have seriously pared them down (or at least boxed her in if a record release would contradict her), but didn’t.