“I Don’t Know Him”
Trump’s normal response to one of his inner circle being indicted/convicted/named as one of his accomplices is, “I don’t know him, I don’t know what he does, blah, blah, blah. It’s his trademark Throw Your Friends Under the Bus strategy. This week, he did it again with Lev Parnas, indicted for campaign finance laws, when he started singing like a canary about his role in trying to frame Joe Biden over fabricated corruption charges.
Trump immediately declared that he didn’t know Parnas. Sure. He never heard of him –
President Donald Trump standing with Lev Parnas at the White House in Washington.
Here’s Trump’s normal response to being caught in a lie as applied to Lev Parnas:
Just like Zsa Zsa Gabor, he’s famous for being famous… or infamous. I heard he’s going to be part of the super bowl half time show.
1Lev must be his nickname. His first name is Zelig, right?
2Yes, definitely half time. He’s going to ride the length of the field on a segway while waving at the crowd. Mike Pence is scheduled to get up and walk out of the stadium.
3“Who?” Like no one ever saw that coming. Or, maybe why Michael Cohen kept a ton of documentation and everyone who ever circled Donnie on one of his crime sprees has e-mails and phone records connecting the dots of what isn’t openly available via IQ4.5’s tweets and Rudy G’s media appearances.
megasoid @3, Donnie on a Segway, not happening, when riding a golf cart is at the pinnacle of his ‘athletic’ ability.
4megasoid@3: please, Trump could not ride a Segway if his life depended on it. Self-balancing or not, he’d be flat on his face in seconds. Instead, he’ll ride in a golf cart, rented at exorbitant prices from Margo del Margarine or whatever.
As for Pence: sorry, but getting up and walking out would require him to raise up on his hind legs. And that’s a stance he’s never been capable of. Rolling over and exposing his belly is more like him.
5The other night I watched “Some Like It Hot” again on TCM. The similarities between Trump and George Raft, who played the mob gangster Spats Columbo, were alarming. (“I never heard of him” was one of his lines when confronted by the Feds.) And Mozarella’s Funeral Home, the front for an illegal speakeasy and gathering place for mob activity, is eerily similar to what the Trump International Hotel has become as a meeting place for the planning of nefarious activity like the Ukraine scandal, all the while lining Trump’s pockets with money from the “guests” who rent rooms there. Life imitating art.
6@4 and 5 Go look at the 8 photos. Who is the constant in each of them? I never mentioned Dolt 45. Have some more coffee.
7megasoid@7, well okay then, somewhere lol in that there subject, predicate whatever noun opener by El Jefe, the subject was IQ4.5 aka Trump. But if you want to go all mathy on us and bring up “constants,” we’ll give you the gotcha on that. In which case we vote for Parnas on a tricycle holding the line to a baby Donnie diaper float. Fat men on Segways, red herring …. sputter… 😉
8For a guy that nobody admits to knowing, Lev Parnas sure got around.
9@8 That would work as well.
10I don’t think I ever enjoyed an interview as much as Lev and Rachel’s. Come to think of it, he is probably the one person who enjoyed it more.
11Theme song for Lev Parnas & members of the Trump family:
Round round get around, I get around, yeah
12(Get around round round I get around, ooh-ooh) I get around
Fom town to town (get around round round I get around)
I’m a real cool head (get around round round I get around)
I’m makin’ real good bread (get around round round I get around)
Checkout Twitter – Seth Abramson – (LEV Picture Party Thread) – many more pix and some descriptions too – some of the ones shown here are from invitation only events 🙂
13Orrrrrr…
Maybe this is the dementia that everybody has been noticing…
14C’mon, didn’t any of you guys watch Mission Impossible? The TV series with Mr. Phelps, not the movie series with that smartass.
“As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds.”
That’s where Trump learned how it’s done.
15#13 Seth is great. I also read Uncle Blazer (@blakesmustache)on Twitter. Check him out.
16megasoid: obviously I missed the mark about who you were talking about. And then the image of Trump on a segway sorta blotted out any coherent thought from me.
but I still maintain that Pence could never do anything that involved standing up for any principles, or that might muss his hair up.
Back on topic: around here, surrounded by people who “would never vote for a Democrat”, the defense is “well, Parnas is a crook and a liar, so you can’t believe what he says about Trump or Nunes.” They seem to think Parnas is some kind of DNC plant, foisted upon the innocent and naive Republicans. So chances are that’s the line Fox is pushing.
17Jane & PKM @4: I think we are seeing the deployment of a Pearl Harbour file in real time, and it is truly a master class.
18@ 17 Surly Professor -Not to worry. Here’s the Pence reference from earlier swamp antics by Pence vs Kaepernick’s kneeldown.
Mike Pence Spent Nearly $250,000 to walk out of a football game
19https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/mike-pence-colts-game
OT – CALLED OUT YOU ON YOUR BS.
Edit: ‘Take your letter and shove it’: Rep. Ted Lieu sends fiery response after Devin Nunes threatened to sue him
Edit: Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California fired a salvo at Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, also of California, on Friday by posting a letter responding to his colleague’s threat of a lawsuit.
Lieu said that Nunes had threatened to sue him, a fact he first made public on Wednesday. In a tweet on Friday, Lieu shared a picture of a letter from Nunes’ attorney, with the subject line “RE: Nunes v. Lieu.” Though Lieu only shared the first of what he said was five pages of the letter, the visible text made clear that Nunes’ complaint almost certainly involved defamation, for which the Republican has been suing many of his critics in recent months.
In addition to the page from Nunes’ lawyer, Lieu also shared his response. His letter, addressed to Nunes lawyer Steve Bliss, was scathing:
I welcome any lawsuit from your client and look forward to taking discovery of Congressman Nunes. Or, you can take your letter and shove it.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/take-your-letter-and-shove-it-rep-ted-lieu-sends-fiery-response-after-devin-nunes-threatened-to-sue-him/
20OT – A 2020 Reminder: 55% of US Women Between 18 and 54 Would Rather Live Under Socialism Than Capitalism
Edit: Not raving Marxists clamoring for state-run economy, evidence shows four in 10 Americans overall would rather live in country that provides “universal health care, tuition-free education, and a decent day’s wage for a decent day’s work.
As Democratic primary voters get ready to head to the polls beginning next month for the first votes of 2020, a reminder was issued Sunday that a majority of voting-age American women between the ages of 18 and 54—and just shy of half the people overall—would prefer living under under an economic system that more closely resembles the democratic socialist Nordic countries compared to the winner-takes-all capitalism that currently dominates in the United States.
Not raving Marxists clamoring for a state-run economy or communists calling for the abolition of private property, but the Harris poll conducted for “Axios on HBO” last year revealed that four in 10 Americans overall would rather live in country that provides a more comprehensive set of universal programs and a broader, more protective social safety net.
That percentage rose dramatically from 40% up to 55% when looking at American women between the ages of 18 and 54, noted Axios’ Felix Salmon and Alexi McCammond in a political analysis—titled “Capitalism’s discontents”—published Sunday.
According to Salmon and McCammond: “When Americans say they want to live in a socialist country, they don’t mean they want to live in a Marxist command economy. Rather, they mean that they want universal health care, tuition-free education, and a decent day’s wage for a decent day’s work.”
Though the Harris poll was published in June of 2019, the Axios’ journalists argued Sunday that similar findings have been shown elsewhere and are likely to have real relevance now that the 2020 primary season is about to begin.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/19/2020-reminder-55-us-women-between-18-and-54-would-rather-live-under-socialism
21Lev worked for the Trump family org for 30 years working his way up from selling condos to laundering money. Just like in the NY mobs, Trump knew him very well while he was a dependable earner, never met him after he was busted.
22I keep thinking that this isn’t Lev’s first rodeo. He kept a whole scrapbook of stuff documenting his shady dealings. I would bet he has done business with Trump/Giuliani types before and knew to keep this info safe if he needed it.
23The Surly Professor @27 from the previous post: about nixon
24Thanks for that.
megasoid@21, Americans don’t really want Socialism (government owning factories), what they want is Scandinavia, four fine countries all rated as Capitalist by the Cato Institute, who you can’t really accuse of being lefties. But anything that helps the little guy has be labeled as “Socialism” by the Rethuglicans for so long, it’s no wonder the label “Socialism” has lost it’s sting.
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