During her congressional bid, Marianne Williamson decried what she called America’s “permanent war machine,” the mass incarceration of people of color, and economic inequality. | Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP 2020 Oprah pal and spirituality guru plans 2020 run 
 
 Add one more name to the growing list of Democrats preparing to run for president in 2020: Marianne Williamson — pal of Oprah, spirituality guru and fixture of Hollywood's New Age community. 
 
 Williamson, a best-selling author of a dozen books on spirituality including “A Return to Love,” announced on Friday that she's forming a presidential exploratory committee and traveling to Iowa, her fifth trip to the state this year. 
 
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 “We had a miracle in this country in 1776 and we need another one,” the Williamson said in a video announcement. “It’s going to be a co-creative effort, an effort of love and a gift of love, to our country and hopefully to our world.” She added that America needs to get “back to an ethical center that is the true exceptionalism of the American ideal.” 
 
 While the 66-year-old Williamson is not a familiar name inside the Beltway, it is not her first time dabbling in national politics. In 2014, she raised $2 million in bid to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman in California, running as an independent. She earned endorsements from high-profile Democrats like former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Williamson came in fourth out of sixteen candidates with 13 percent of the vote with Rep. Ted Lieu eventually prevailing. 
 
 “She has not talked to me. I don’t know anything about it,” Granholm said in a text message when asked about Williamson’s presidential ambitions. 
 
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 A cryptic job listing had been circling around in political circles this week for a social media director to join a presidential bid that was “part campaign, part startup, part spiritual movement” on behalf of a “woman, non-politician, high-profile writer and spiritual personality.” 
 
 Multiple sources said they understood the posting to be for Williamson but spokespeople for the potential presidential candidate did not return requests for comment. 
 
 In 2014, Williamson also had support from celebrities like Eva Longoria, Nicole Richie and Jane Lynch. Alanis Morrissette even composed a campaign jingle for the effort. "We're going down, down, down. We're going down unless we move to new ground, unless we start a revolution, awaken from this frozen, start the mending of our union today," went the song. 
 
 During her congressional bid, Williamson decried what she called America’s “permanent war machine,” the mass incarceration of people of color, and economic inequality. After she lost, Williamson told Oprah in an interview that she learned a lot from the experience. 
 
 “I kept waiting for people to tell me what to do and [I] tried to hire people who would tell me what to do,” she said. “It taught me what I should have already known: to only listen to myself.” ||||| This article is over 2 months old 
 
 Lawyer who targeted Trump over hush money allegations was taken into custody Wednesday 
 
 Michael Avenatti, who skyrocketed to fame as a critic of Donald Trump and the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, was arrested Wednesday and booked on a felony domestic violence charge, Los Angeles police said. 
 
 The victim in the case had visible injuries, according to officer Tony Im, a police spokesman. 
 
 Avenatti slammed the allegation as “completely bogus” and “fabricated and meant to do harm to my reputation” in a statement released by his law firm. 
 
 Avenatti, who has said he’s mulling a 2020 presidential run, posted $50,000 bail and was released about four hours after he was arrested Wednesday on the same block where he lives in a skyscraper apartment. 
 
 Stormy Daniels' tell-all book on Trump: salacious detail and claims of cheating Read more 
 
 Police declined to provide any details about the victim, including the victim’s relationship to Avenatti. 
 
 As he left the police station Wednesday, Avenatti said he had never hit a woman and said he’s been an advocate for women’s rights his entire career. 
 
 “I wish to thank the hard working men and woman of the LAPD for their professionalism and their work today. They had no option in light of the allegations,” Avenatti said. “I am looking forward to a full investigation, at which point I am confident that I will be fully exonerated.” 
 
 Avenatti became famous as Daniels’ lawyer and pursued the president and those close to him relentlessly for months, taunting Trump in interviews and baiting him and his lawyers in tweets. 
 
 Daniels, a pornographic film actor, has said she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and has sued to invalidate the confidentiality agreement she signed days before the 2016 presidential election that prevents her discussing it. She also sued Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, alleging defamation. 
 
 The Vermont Democratic party canceled events planned for Friday and Saturday, where Avenatti was scheduled to speak, and is refunding ticket sales. ||||| Oprah Winfrey might just run for president in 2020. 
 
 The media mogul said in June that she “will never run for public office,” but she promoted an article Thursday saying she is the Democratic Party’s best hope for the 2020 election. 
 
 “Thanks for your VOTE of confidence!” Oprah tweeted at conservative writer John Podhoretz with a link to his New York Post article: “Democrats’ best hope for 2020: Oprah.” 
 
 The piece argued that Winfrey, 63, is effectively the perfect foil to President Donald Trump. 
 
 “She is the mirror image of Trump, but more so. Of course, she’s female and he’s male; she’s America’s generous aunt and he’s America’s crazy uncle. And yes, she’s black and he’s white, she’s liberal and he’s whatever he is,” Podhoretz wrote. 
 
 “It goes beyond that. He’s rich and she’s rich, but she made her $3 billion herself and with no controversy. She is, in herself, the embodiment of the American Dream. He got famous from TV, and so did she, but she became vastly more famous and vastly more successful at it.” 
 
 He went on to write: “As for politics, it’s worth remembering that Oprah played a not-insubstantial role in the 2008 election…A 2008 study at the University of Maryland suggested that Winfrey herself was responsible for more than 1 million votes cast for Obama in the Democratic contest — which suggests he might not have prevailed had she not campaigned on his behalf.” 
 
 Soon after Trump’s victory in November, Winfrey said she used to think she didn’t have the necessary experience to run, but “now I’m thinking, ‘Oh.'” 
 
 FOR MORE ON OPRAH’S PAST INVOLVEMENT IN PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS WATCH:
– Oprah says she's not interested in running for president in 2020, but one of her friends definitely is. Marianne Williamson, described by Politico as a "spirituality guru and fixture of Hollywood's New Age community," announced Friday that she's forming an exploratory committee. "We need to get our country back on track, our government back on track, back to an ethical center that is the true exceptionalism of the American ideal," says the 66-year-old in her launch video. Williamson has dabbled in politics before, with an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2014 as an independent. She picked up some high-profile endorsements, including that of Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Another longshot candidate for Democrats? Michael Avenatti. The attorney for Stormy Daniels says he's still considering a run despite this week's domestic violence charges, which he insists are bogus. "I will not be intimidated," Avenatti tells USA Today. "The measure of a person is how they get up when they are knocked down." (Oprah played a role in Georgia's gubernatorial race.)