Shortly after it was announced on Saturday that Jeffrey Epstein had been arrested and was facing indictment for the sex trafficking of minors, the disinformation machine kicked into gear in order to protect the President. I want to make it very clear right now that there is no evidence that the President is implicated in Epstein’s crimes. The DOJ is not alleging that in its indictment of Epstein, and neither am I. All we know at this time is that the President had a long standing personal relationship with Epstein and, at one point, commented that Epstein likes women who are on the younger side.
That stipulated to, here’s what was quickly put up by a poster with ID: NKrYzbHL at 10:35 PM on 4Chan’s /pol/ board:
COLLECTED COUNTER POINTS FOR MOCKINGBIRD SPIN
Can Anons add smth & help backing up with sauce, please?
– Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Golf Club and banned him for life, when he found out, Epstein was hooking up with the 14 Year old daughter of an employer
-Trump is NOT in the flight log to Lolita Island, not even once. He “hitched a ride” back from Daytona Beach TO NYC with Epstein’s son one time…and I have little doubt they tried like holy hell to get Trump to Lolita Island. Epstein assaulted a young girl at Mara Largo and Trump had him banned for life.
-At Epstein’s first arrest Trump went voluntarily to the police to give a statement and at the time the Police commented “He could not have been MORE forthcoming”.
-Trump knew what Epstein was up to “he’s a fun guy, likes his girls young, really really young”. People held that against him as if it were some form of agreement when in fact, in typical Trump fashion he slapped Epstein publicly..iron fist in velvet glove. He was NOT a politician and he had to do business with these people and he still managed to say something about what he knew was going on.
https://pagesix.com/2017/07/08/trum
p-was-the-boring-guy-at-studio-54/
You will not be surprised to find out that the link to the Page Six article does not mention Epstein, the President’s relationship to Epstein, the President kicking Epstein out of and rescinding his membership to Mar-a-Lago! It is solely about the book written by Studio 54’s former owner and the only references to the President in it outside of his name in the title of the write up and listing in the categories and tags are:
The former owner of infamous Manhattan club Studio 54 is releasing a tell-all book dishing on the wild cocaine parties and the antics of stars including John Belushi, Robin Williams — and even a “boring” Donald Trump.
Trump was another club regular, but “he never touched drink or drugs. He liked looking at beautiful women, even though he was married to Ivana.
Trump wasn’t a lot of fun — when you’re in a crowd drinking and drugging and one person isn’t, that person seems boring.”
In fact I have been unable to find any references to the President kicking Epstein out of and rescinding his membership to Mar-a-Lago, nor that he gave evidence to the Palm Beach Police. There is a December 2018 YouTube video interview of one of the victim’s attorneys where he states that in 2009, the President was helpful when he was trying to serve subpoenas in his civil suit. Not that he went down and gave testimony to the Palm Beach Police, not that he assisted prosecutors in Florida in their case, but that he was helpful in regard to getting subpoenas served. That’s it. We can all agree that was important help the President provided, but it is not giving testimony or assisting prosecutors, which is what is being alleged.
It is unclear if this was the first or even original post as screengrabs have been tweeted with a 1900 hours time stamp from what appears to be a different board, most likely either 8Chan or one of the subreddits. These are in response to other’s tweets about Epstein and, in some cases, his relationship with the President.
Here’s one from a Twitter thread by Ellen Barkin:
No he wasn’t that’s part of the talking points sent out pic.twitter.com/CrUKHXmnaZ
— (((Susan))) ?? ?️? (@SusanMills158) July 8, 2019
It was also posted, as an explainer about centralized talking points being organized for pushback, in this Brian Stelter thread.
I've shared it a million times. These people don't read. They follow. pic.twitter.com/cj1Azv3eTg
— Rhonda Harbison (@rhonda_harbison) July 7, 2019
And here is another 4Channer, ID OBJzFf63, posting a copy of the screenshot at /pol/ with the statement that “THEY’RE CATCHING ON TO US”.
These responses are now being tweeted, with no reference to the original point at 4Chan, to push back on allegations being made about the President’s involvement and relationship with Epstein. The tweets below are responses to a tweet responding to Maggie Haberman’s tweet about some of the incriminating information in the Epstein indictment, specifically that he maintained a safe full of incriminating pictures and CDs and he labeled both.
You do realize that it was Trump that reported Epstein to the FBI? Trump never flew on Epstein's plane the Lolita Express & never visited his island. He banned him from his clubs & turned him in to the authorities. Trump's been an FBI asset since at least the late 1970s!
— DawsonSField (@DawsonSField) July 8, 2019
Trump & his brother served up mob money launderers at BCCI on a silver platter & politicians blocked the prosecution. The DOJ team working with Trump on that case? Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein & Barr. They got the band back together to drain the Swamp.
— DawsonSField (@DawsonSField) July 8, 2019
From here it will continue to be pushed through the alt-right, QAnnon, Pizzagate conspiracy theory portions of social media, then get picked up by Russian trolls and bots and amplified. From there it will move into the fringe right/conservative digital news platforms, where it will once again be amplified by the Russian trolls and bots, and from there it will get picked up by first conservative news like Fox and conservative talk radio and then more mainstream news outlets like CNN because its news, so it should be reported. This is the usual trajectory for these disinformation influence operations. One of the Tyler Durdens has been pushing variants of some of this stuff since early this morning at Zero Hedge, including barbering a quote from the video interview posted above and presenting it out of context from the question that was asked and suggesting that the President aided prosecutors, which, again, is not substantiated by the interview.
And that is how the disinformation is made and transmitted.
Open thread!
flyingwatertanker
What’s the chance that the faux king pee resident got a heads up last week, and future potus pence was summoned back to the white house to work out the details of the coming pardon?
Just asking for a friend…
Cheryl Rofer
Nice catch, Adam.
The Dangerman
@flyingwatertanker:
I think Trump wanted someone he could trust to make really, really, really sure the Teleprompters were gonna work.
Oopsie.
debbie
Who knew they’d see little Mockingbird as a threat?
?BillinGlendaleCA
…and now there are 24*, Swalwell’s out.
*or 25 or 26, I’ve lost count.
TenguPhule
Watching the lies form in real time is disorienting.
MattF
Phase I: Dozens of trolls screaming at the tops of their lungs while everyone else is still trying to figure out the cast of characters.
In any event, I think the prosecutors will try to stay away from the White House– but we shall see. There’s some talk about a Bear Stearns connection between Epstein and Trump. All vague.
trollhattan
Is this gonna be on the final? I’m way behind.
John Revolta
Hmmmm
randy khan
The notion that Trump blew the whistle on BCCI is so incomprehensible that all you can do is laugh.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BillinGlendaleCA: Except Steyer plans to get in.
He’s not Trump, but this is such a Trumpian model. He’s rich, therefore his lack of experience is irrelevant. Plainly he’s qualified. The most quallified.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Three snuck in while he was leaving. Game Department officials are trying to dart and tag them now.
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
Without a program its impossible to keep the entire cast straight.
TenguPhule
@randy khan:
Its a lie so big I’m certain every Republican will accept it as gospel.
Patricia Kayden
It’s good that they know we’re on to them and .their propaganda. The so-called MSM must investigate and report the truth. Trump can’t be allowed to skate away unscathed from yet another scandal.
Chris Johnson
@TenguPhule: Nah, this is how you know there are meat on those bones.
We know this is happening. It’s fucking obvious. In this case, it’s a glimpse of it actually happening.
Shows where the defenses are concentrated, so it’s damn useful information in its vague way.
I stick by my purely intuitive ‘take’ that Trump is not drunk or on drugs, he’s a sex creep owned by Putin and the Russian mob, and has been since the 80s (late 1970s they say? When did he drop out of sight for a bit? Is that a hint that it was earlier than the 80s, since they are trying to spin some particular bullshit that might neatly cover up the inadmissible reality?)
And his ‘blackmail’ has probably been ‘Hey, I can set you up with screaming hot DEALS’ (not girls), and it turns out to be true, and THEN you learn you’re in bed with the Russian mob. It would explain a lot. Any Trump perversity is a sideline to the reality that he is the bondage b*tch for Putin and the mob and has been for decades. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to worry about sex that much, he is totally consumed with lying that he is a billionaire, when in fact he has absolutely nothing but what his masters allow him to have. Trump is not the free agent people pretend he is, and what he wants doesn’t matter at all.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Yes, time to hit the books young man.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Thank you. I am going to go and take a Silkwood Shower now.
Just One More Canuck
It would be irresponsible not to speculate
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: The Game Warden may need to issue an order to cull the herd, seems like we may have an over-population problem.
eclare
@TenguPhule: The bigger the lie, the more they believe – The Wire
TaMara (HFG)
I should really learn to stay offline on Mondays…and Fridays…oh hell…
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop dropping acid.
MattF
@TaMara (HFG): It’s easier if you’re retired and don’t sleep well.
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: What are your feelings on trap-neuter-release for this particular problem?
MattF
@dmsilev: You have to be careful about the rabid ones.
debbie
And they were worried about Judge Roy Moore!
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for all this. It is very interesting that some people are furiously working to try to insulate Trump from any possible connection with this scandal.
But not working as hard to protect Secretary of Labor Acosta.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The Democratic base is NOT the Republican base. He will be going nowhere.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
An Acting Secretary would serve the same purpose. And probably be more subservient.
Chris Johnson
@Just One More Canuck: You know it’s just as possible that Epstein is implicated in TRUMP’S crimes.
Trump isn’t necessarily so crazed by sex. He has other obsessions to pursue, namely lying that he’s rich. He’s also controlled by Russia as we well know: I think it goes waaaay beyond ‘helped by’, he is their guy 100% and nothing without them.
So, if he has a lot of connections with Epstein but does not himself indulge, you start looking for why. Who would be interested in amassing a lot of kompromat of the biggest names in American business and government, raping children? Who would be eager to make those connections between Epstein and his masters? Trump, obviously. Who would be super enthusiastic about feeding kompromat to powerful friends who could protect him against any sort of justice? Epstein, obviously. Because Epstein is obsessed with having sex with children, and Trump is the guy with the big connections.
It’s a match made in hell.
If this is coming out, it means some people have weighed the consequences and decided that it’s time to burn bridges. It’s going to be messy as hell. Buckle in.
Trump didn’t go to Epstein for sex. Epstein went to Trump, long ago, for protection.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
Acosta can always be replaced if Trump is still in office
Timurid
Just days after Barr reaffirmed Acosta’s sweetheart deal, essentially giving Epstein his protection… here comes SDNY, flying the black flag.
Is this turning into a civil war in the DoJ?
Adam L Silverman
@flyingwatertanker: My impression from the reporting on that so far, is that the VP’s trip was cancelled because of something going on on the New Hampshire end, not the DC/White House end.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: It isn’t vague. The former CEO of Bear Stearns personally handled the President’s accounts. He also personally hired and supervised Epstein.
Adam L Silverman
@Just One More Canuck: That may be. That is also what comments are for. But, my impression as more and more is reported regarding Epstein, is that you’re looking at a nexus between organized crime and foreign intelligence services, specifically the Israelis and the Russians.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Liberal F.B.I. framing Epstein because of his close relationship with Trump
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: Acosta has always been expendable. Whether Acosta realizes that is another story completely.
rikyrah
You are on it, Silverman.
But, of course, Dolt45 is up to his eyeballs in this. I’m sure of it.
Spanky
@trollhattan: That is a perfect analogy in my sad little world.
Chyron HR
At the risk of sounding glib, so what? Ivanka could go on TV and tearfully accuse her father of raping her, and his supporters would still go “Fake news! He cobopperated with the investamagation! Follow the Q crumbs!”
Spanky
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I am so glad I retied and don’t have to worry about passing a poly anymore, ’cause one of these days ….
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: I guess it’s a question of numbers, autonomy, and details. Large brokerages will have dozens, if not hundreds of ‘friends, pals, and familes’ accounts– and different employees will be tethered to the C-suite in different ways. We hear about the assholes and shitheads, but most financial people are just out there doing a job with varying degrees of autonomy.
zhena gogolia
@Spanky:
I’m so glad Bandit came back! Lots of treats are in order.
Spanky
@zhena gogolia: Thanks!
Like hell! That asshole ….
SenyorDave
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Except Steyer plans to get in.
If Steyer really wanted to do good and spend tens of millions, he should hire a hundred private investigators to start looking into Trump/Epstein connections.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: Normally I’d prefer that approach, but I think it’s too late at this point.
Matt
You know they’re worried when the go-to defense is “sure he kept a crime quiet but he banned the guy who did it!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chris Johnson:
Wait, we’re talking about Donald Trump here, right?
kindness
You forgot the part about where the 4Chan & the Russians will start blaming Obama for Espstein’s behaviour with underage girls. Because of course they will.
PST
My Fox-watching brother tells me that the weekend Fox commentators were calling on Acosta to resign. I have no desire to check that out for myself, but if it’s true, i assume that Acosta is toast.
Immanentize
@Timurid: If you were Epstein, would you rather have a case in Trump’s DOJ? Or in the Mahattan D.A. or NY State A.G.?
Fool me once….
Jay
While Social Media can be a great purveyor of disinfo, it also has some inbuilt weaknesses, especially Twitter,
The purveyors of disinfo, ( as opposed to plain text trolls) want to be seen as authentic accounts, and at the same time, rely on their volume, exhausting counter efforts.
Back in the day of Afghanistan/Iraq War arguments on the web, it took me a while, but all the pro-War Crowd had were the same “talking points”. When you argued against and disproved/sunk #1, they would switch to #2, and so on and so on. When they ran out of canned talking points, they would go back yo #1. They relied on exhausting their anti-bullshit opponents.
Once I realized that, I simply created word files of all the gounter arguments, so that the response to a lengthy or short talking point, could simply replied to with a quick cut and paste with a light edit.
Somebody would spent 20 minutes trying to re-voice one of the talking points into their own words, and I could shoot it down in 3.
Twitter’s even easier because there’s 170/270 words +gif, screenshot, youtube, news story, retweet, link.
So Adam has already provided several tweets that can simply be retweeted to counter the disinfo, one tweet counters the disinfo, the other ties the disinfo to a 4chan ratfucking operation, which attacks the poster’s “authenticity”.
Because you retweeted them, they live in your twitter account forever. As you come across new counters, you simply retweet them. As a result, countering each and every example of disinfo, takes a few seconds.
Because of Brexit/2016, there are data “nerds” working on this real time, open sourced and real time. Follow some of them. This stuff is no longer hidden by National Security/Social Media interests.
Shalimar
@Chris Johnson: Epstein is a pimp who procures underage girls for billionaire clients. He didn’t put together a whole staff of people to help him just for his own personal pleasure. This isn’t just a personal perversion. And Trump’s personal history with sex is long and sordid. If he didn’t do business with Epstein, it was because he had no trouble finding girls on his own through his modeling agency and pageants.
Martin
When a member of your club is hooking up with a 14 year old, that’s a pretty fucking good time to call the FBI, boss. Life does work that way for the rest of us.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
And when did the Russian mob take over the existing NYC east coast Sicilian mob with overwhelming violence? late 1970s? mid 1980s? I forget, I’m bad with dates. But a wealthy group of pedophiles sounds like a gusher well of money to a mob willing to blackmail people for years and years. All you need is a short clip of imagery of rich guy #1-237 with obviously barely teen girl #1-142, and patience to not kiil the golden goose too quickly.
Already being in the finance biz makes it eazy peazy, they just invest with you, sometimes they lose, sometimes you both win which is extra gravy. But no financial trail of inexplicable payments, just “investments” with your investment banker…
“What do you mean, she was only 14!”
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman: that’s not credible. Nothing ever happens in New Hampshire!
Kay
I think the Trump fanatic’s stories tell us something important, though. Not about Trump. About his fans.
They need to believe he’s a good person. They tell these stories to protect themselves, not Donald Trump.
It’s not true that they “don’t care” what he does. They care a lot. They care so much they are willing to spin these elaborate theories about how Trump is not a scumbag but instead a hero- working with the FBI, ordering the pedo out of the country club. They need to believe he is secretly a good person in order to continue to justify supporting him.
That’s much different than “not caring”. It’s the opposite of not caring. Not caring would look like this “so what if he coddled and befriended the pedo? So what if he lies constantly and is incompetent and racist and cruel? My 401k is up and he owns the libs!”
This isn’t that at all. They’re validating the norms by denying that Trump is breaking them. Not just denying. Twisting themselves into pretzels to deny. That’s how important it is to them.
debbie
@Kay:
Of course they care! He told them they were fine people!
louc
@Shalimar: This.
A thirdhand story I heard before this latest Epstein saga. Someone’s brother ran some auto show in Detroit. Trump was a sponsor. Apparently one of the auto dealers came to the brother and asked him to get Trump to leave. His 15-year-old daughter was running an exhibit and Trump kept harassing her. So yeah, stuff’s going to come out and bite him.
Remember that lawsuit filed in 2016 where a woman accused Trump of raping her when she was 13 at Epstein’s NY mansion? She withdrew the suit because of death threats. That story is being revived in the wake of this. The Twitter trolls keep posting some “news” story claiming she made it up and was a druggie.
Kay
This isn’t saying norms and behavior don’t matter. It says they DO matter. That Trump and Comey and Mueller and the rest are on the white hat team.
If it “didn’t matter” they wouldn’t spin these ridiculous theories about how Trump secretly helps law enforcement. They’re so desperate to believe this about Trump (and about themselves, how they are good people) that they will completely reconstruct reality.
I don’t think it can last, and when it crashes they will fall, hard. Each piece of evidence that Trump is a shitty low life chips away at the myth they’ve created and causes them to redouble their efforts to construct an ever-more elaborate fantasy. They can’t do that forever.
Kay
@debbie:
Right, but we say “how can they admire this person?”. They can admire him because they’ve constructed a completely different person, one who secretly and behind the scenes is a GOOD person. They don’t admire him because he’s bad. That wouldn’t require elaborate fantasies. “Good” does require a fantasy, so they engage in one, which means it is very important to them.
Mnemosyne
@Shalimar:
This. The whole point of the Epstein prosecution was that he was a procurer and pimp in addition to being a pedophile in his own right. He was providing underage girls to a long list of clients.
And, yeah, I would not be at all surprised if both Russian and Israeli counterintelligence have their hands in this through their organized crime contacts. It’s an awesome way to blackmail someone into being a spy or informant for you. The Chinese probably do the same with the more “ordinary” massage parlor sex trafficking like the NFL guy got caught up in.
randal m sexton
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/04/donald-trump-teenage-rape-accusations-lawsuit-dropped Leave this here in case it hasn’t been mentioned
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Actually Kay, yes, they do.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Two words.
Ronald Reagan. /Spit
J R in WV
@louc:
So if a 13-y-o girl is a drug user, a tragedy in itself, she can’t be raped by pedophiles? I know you aren’t saying that… the trolls are saying that. But I can barely believe even twit trolls can believe that.
A 13 year old girl can’t be a prostitute, she can’t make that decision. It’s statutory rape no matter what drugs she was on, no matter who gave them to her.
And no way Trump is helping prosecute anyone for anything… talk about a fantasy!
Adam L Silverman
Dinner is in the oven. This experiment is either going to work or I’m going out!
Mnemosyne
@louc:
A lot of the girls who got caught up in Epstein’s ring ended up turning to drugs in order to cope. The lucky ones were able to get into treatment and therapy. The unlucky ones overdosed or died by other means.
So, yeah, sneering that they’re “druggies” may be factual, but extraordinarily incomplete.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt: And there’s absolutely no evidence to support that at all. No reporting, contemporaneous to the events or current reporting. Nothing, nada, zippo, bupkis.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Dude, that’s three words!
Jay Noble
I had read this on Daily Kos way back before the election and it pretty much lays bare the whole sordid icky mess and its the modeling agencies that tie it all together. It’s long but the dots go back to the 70’s. Intresting note that I caught this time around, Trump’s Roy Cohn died of AIDS complications. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/6/1578544/-The-Untold-Story-of-Trump-Model-Management-A-Daily-Kos-Exclusive-Part-1
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: They started moving in in that time frame and largely consolidated while Giuliani was US Attorney in the SDNY. While he took credit for breaking up the mob, what really happened is that Mueller and others made some high profile prosecutions that Rudy took credit for as the boss and looked the other way as the Russian mob basically killed its way into taking over.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: Not since the rock formation on the license plate fell down.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: @Kay: Yep.
Basically, the alt right, white supremacist, neo-NAZIS, men’s rights, QANON, pizzagate, shitposter communities (lot of overlap among all of them) that infest 4chan, 8chan, and the subreddits dedicated to those issues and those dedicated to Trump immediately created a counter-influence narrative to protect the President regarding his long standing relationship with Epstein. As they did with the pizzagate and QAnnon conspiracies, the President is presented as a falsely ridiculed and accused member of the American aristocracy who, through an act of selfless noblesse-oblige, has given up his lavish, self made, and legitimately earned/inherited lifestyle (and yes, not all of those things make sense in regard to each other), in order to work under cover with the true Federal law enforcement and counterintelligence officials of the US to save it from an international, Jewish backed via Soros financing, pedophile cult that is attempting to subvert the US, and white Christian society and western civilization. The pedophile cult, financed and backed by Soros, is led by the Obamas, the Clintons, Comey, Mueller, Holder, Lynch, Pelosi, Schumer, McMaster, Mattis, the Podestas, and a long, long, long list of other largely Democratic and center left to left of center politicians, elites and notables in the US.
So what they did here was concoct a narrative, in line with their conspiracist beliefs, that Trump is actually working with law enforcement and counterintelligence, and then presented that as him working against Epstein with prosecutors to bring Epstein to justice. The one citation provided, to Page Six, has nothing at all to do with Epstein at all, let alone the President’s connection to him, The stuff from Zero Hedge is a hodge podge of items thrown together, with a misleading headline, framed to make the same points. When you actually follow the links back, they don’t support what Zero Hedge posted.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
OK, you have to tell us about the experiment. When one of my experiments fails, I fall back on a frozen pizza… Going out without a planned trip to town is way too risky. Lots of the good restaurants are closed on Sunday and Monday, also too.
\
Funny restaurant note: There was a Korean BBQ place that also did shusi and such. They had a MacArthur Roll, and a Hiroshima Roll, and a Nagasaki roll — not being fond of Japanese culture, except for liking the food.
But now it’s a Japanese place, and I haven’t been there again, and have to wonder if the menu has changed. MacArthur Roll anyone?
Just bought a Mazda, didn’t know they were based in Hiroshima! Nice car, MX-5 crossover suv, really like it so far. First Japanese car since a 1970 Land Cruiser FJ-40 we bought just after getting out of the Navy.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Ghislaine Maxwell’s father was tied to both the Mossad and the KGB. Dersh is likely tied to the former, at least informally.
John Revolta
@Mnemosyne: I read his MO was, when he met somebody he’d go “What kind of girl do you like?” And he’d send somebody to your home or office; somebody that you might or might not realize was underage…………..but if you did anything with her, he’s got you.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Yes, good point. They’re desperate to believe that Trump is better — more moral, more upstanding — than Obama or any liberal is so they can justify their support for him. If he’s a terrible person who does horrible things, that would make THEM terrible people, too.
It’s really co-dependency writ large. They have to believe that he’s good and has their best interests at heart the same way they had to believe that their abusive and/or neglectful parents were good and had their best interests at heart despite all of the available evidence. If they don’t keep that world intact inside their own heads, everything crumbles.
This is also why you have so many conservatives insisting that refugee parents are responsible for the kiddie concentration camps. They have to cling to their belief in themselves/their fellow conservatives as “good people,” so they insist that the kiddie concentration camps are everyone else’s fault. If they admitted that Trump and Kelly set them up to be deliberately and systematically abusive, they would lose that fig leaf of moral superiority that they cling to.
EriktheRed
Come on, fellow Juicers on twitter!
Why am *I* the only one calling this Dawsons guy out on his evidence-free assertions??
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: I, unfortunately, can no longer really eat pizza. Because I don’t eat heavily refined/refined carbohydrates, I can’t eat pasta. But I love lasagna, which I usually make using wonton skins/past sheets. I had a thought: what if I use those rice paper sheets/wrappers they use to make fresh spring rolls for Thai and related cuisines? So I’ve got a lasagna in the over where I’ve used the rice paper sheets in places of pasta sheets. It smells good, but the question will be how it held up in the baking process and whether the rice paper sheets held up so there’s anything to eat other than goop.
MomSense
I need to sit the next few months out. I started modeling in 1979 and went to Studio 54 a number of times. My stepdad was very well connected so I was kept relatively safe, but we certainly knew about some of what was going on. Something to keep in mind is that very young girls dressed and made up to be much older was more than just what was “in” at the time. Brooke Shields was a little older than I was and she was being photographed suggestively and making sexualized films like Blue Lagoon. So much is going to come out.
Adam L Silverman
@EriktheRed: I don’t have a twitter account might have something to do with it.
Chris Johnson
@Adam L Silverman: That would follow my hunch that Trump has been the Russian mob’s guy since forever, has no money of his own, and is more the Russian’s byotch than he is a self-actualized sex creep. I think everything he wants to do, he does, out in the open, and we know a lot of it and there’s not much iceberg under all that. The iceberg is Trump’s Russian mob connections. If the Russian mob took over from the Mafia, I’m sure Trump played a role.
I think he set up a lot of ‘friends’ with great ‘deals’, and was particularly interested in setting up ‘friends’ with Epstein, because his Russian friends wanted that to happen. I don’t see Trump’s own lusts as driving all this. Trump wants everyone to think he is rich and his own self-made man, more than he wants anything that could ever happen in a sex act no matter what it is. There’s a reason his obsession is that. It’s because he’s a puppet.
Hillary knew all along, of course. I used to wonder why she came off so hawkish against Russia, but she’s been proven right. She could have found some way to out the fucker, but I think she would have been throwing Bill to the wolves, and this she would not do.
Mnemosyne
@John Revolta:
Maybe this is a gender divide, but why in the HELL would any guy fuck a woman (or man) sent by someone else? How stupid do you have to be to do that and NOT realize you’re going to be blackmailed?
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
There was also a popular drug called cocaine at the time. It didn’t do good things for judgment.
EriktheRed
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s why I specified “on twitter”, sir.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
If it’s just goop, it should at least be tasty goop.
I got some good gluten-free no-boil lasagna noodles at Target that I think were their house brand. Barilla makes some, too.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
Guys seem to do this all the time. Remember the whole thing with Neil Bush allegedly not realizing that a strange woman who showed up at his hotel room to have sex with him was a hooker sent by his business partners in China? ?
Also IIRC Shields and her mother were estranged for a while once Shields was a young adult and started to take inventory of how damaging it had been for her to be sexualized at such a young age. Same with Jodie Foster and her mother.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris Johnson: His family’s business has been laundering money for the mob since his grandfather was running brothels. First the Camora. Then the Cosa Nostra and Five Families. And then to now the Bratva.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: It isn’t a gluten issue, it’s refined carbohydrates and refined sugar.
misterpuff
@J R in WV:
I believe that POTUS hisownself told Snuffalopagus “I can’t think of a reason I’d ever call the FBI”
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
That was the creepiest thing about modeling at the time. It was the mother’s who were really pushing their daughters into dangerous situations.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: Dude….I hate to tell you…but you’re going to end up with tasty gloop.
CatFacts
@Mnemosyne: I suspect for the same reason that these guys accepted loans, drugs, expensive watches, etc. from their friends. The girls were a form of currency, and if it was a little shady, well, so was the origin of the cash, watches, and drugs…
I am of course not defending this in the least. Hope as much of this rings as possible gets taken down.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Odds are favoring goop.
Those sheets are not designed to handle excessive moisture well.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m skeptical that it will work — I don’t think they’re sturdy enough, even stacked. But you can apparently use them to make a grilled pizza:
https://www.vickypham.com/blog/vietnamese-pizzaquesadilla-banh-trang-nuong
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Remember the Woody Allen film Manhattan? Sometimes I can’t believe how accepted it all was.
Chris Johnson
@Adam L Silverman: So, confirmation that it would be plausible for Trump to have been the Russian mob’s guy since the Eighties, combined with a really good reason why Epstein could have befriended Trump for protection, and a hell of a good reason why Trump and his masters would have played along with that with great enthusiasm. Which in turn explains why Epstein has acted so untouchable all this time.
Damn but these are ‘interesting times’. The important thing to remember is that this shit was in place ALL this time. To see it coming to light is a very good sign that it’s starting to come apart.
Chip Daniels
Apparently the safe contained a pre-written alibi note:
“Jeffrey didn’t do nuthin'”
Signed, Epstein’s mother.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m feeling nauseous after reading this.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Robert Maxwell was the Rupert Murdoch wannabe who bought the publishing company I worked for with funds he stole from his companies’ pension funds. A crackerjack guy!
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I make lasagna with sliced roasted eggplant. It would be even better if I had a grill.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Ego.
debbie
@MomSense:
Tell me about it. When he started in with his step-daughter, I was horrified thinking back over all the films I’d seen. I haven’t seen any of his films since.
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: @TenguPhule: @Mnemosyne: Goop! The top layer held up, everything else basically melted into the ricotta, ground beef/Italian turkey sausage, mozzarella cheese.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Imagine how I feel, I had to write it!
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: So you’re saying you’d make lasagna using parts from your grill? I would think that would be hard to digest.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: Next time you may want to try frying the rice sheets in some oil in a wok, before adding it to the lasagna, the oil should retard the rate it turns to goop sufficiently that you can have something to bite into.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Fiber is your Friend!
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: I think I’ll just remember what lasagna was like and not tinker further.
cynthia ackerman
@MomSense:
I spent a bit of time at Studio 54 around the same time. Vivid memories of very young of both genders getting lots of attention from the grown-ups.
OT, my favorite Studio 54 memory is seeing Andy Warhol’s birthday party. His friends gave him a steel garbage can full of money.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Robert Maxwell was no mere wannabe, he just didn’t have Rupe’s level of desire for world domination.
Original Lee
@debbie: Hello, fellow Maxwell survivor. That mess took a really long time to shake out afterwards, too.
debbie
@Original Lee:
It sure did! And the results were no better. :(
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
I see caulifower-based pizza crust at Kroger’s now. I have no problems with any carbs, beans and potatoes are a big part of my diet, as is gnocchi and pasta. But maybe a cauliflower crust would enable you to eat pizza again??
Also for the wonton wrapper lasagna, try layering several wonton layers together perhaps? with maybe a spoonful of sauce beween, or even nothing, maybe a dab of butter?
s herl
We have winner. Chris Hayes just reported that Trump threw Epstein out of MaraLago. When asked for comment, his guess said there is no evidence of that. Now it’s in the main stream. Now he has Claire McCaskill pontificating on the Acosta nomination after voting for him. Unreal