The Third Man

You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax – the only way you can save money nowadays.

Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

So let me tell you about my dead Uncle. His primary occupation was collecting film quotes like that but for amusement he’d rely on The Weekly World News, delighting in the saga of “Bat Boy” in particular.

Yes, he had seen Men In Black 1 & 2. He was into Bat Boy waaay before that.

Anyway, you understand why I was pleased to hear when they sealed off the Headquarters because of the Anthrax Attack (you remember that?) David Pecker was allowed to take 2 items as he evacuated and chose… of all the things in The Vault… the original picture of Bat Boy and the photo of dead Elvis in his coffin.

Welcome to ‘Murika folks.

Hear now, the news. It seems due to the “Co-Operative” testimony of that same David Pecker (minds out of the gutter folks) that in August, 2015, much earlier than previously thought, there was a meeting on the 26th Floor of Trump Tower Manhattan between Michael Cohen, the selfsame David Pecker, and a Third Man.

Only, it’s not new news. Yesterday was a good one for the Wall Street Journal, other than Butina (I may get to that later, it’s complicated) their stories were the only thing anyone talked about.

The odd thing on this one is the dateline, Nov. 9, 2018, more than a month ago. I must admit it eluded me also but I don’t frequent the WSJ since they are notorious for their paywalls.

Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal
By Joe Palazzolo, Nicole Hong, Michael Rothfeld, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, and Rebecca Ballhaus, Wall Street Journal
Nov. 9, 2018

As a presidential candidate in August 2015, Donald Trump huddled with a longtime friend, media executive David Pecker, in his cluttered 26th floor Trump Tower office and made a request.

What can you do to help my campaign? he asked, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., offered to use his National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women if they tried to publicize alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.

Less than a year later, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pecker to quash the story of a former Playboy model who said they’d had an affair. Mr. Pecker’s company soon paid $150,000 to the model, Karen McDougal, to keep her from speaking publicly about it. Mr. Trump later thanked Mr. Pecker for the assistance.

The Trump Tower meeting and its aftermath are among several previously unreported instances in which Mr. Trump intervened directly to suppress stories about his alleged sexual encounters with women, according to interviews with three dozen people who have direct knowledge of the events or who have been briefed on them, as well as court papers, corporate records and other documents.

Taken together, the accounts refute a two-year pattern of denials by Mr. Trump, his legal team and his advisers that he was involved in payoffs to Ms. McDougal and a former adult-film star. They also raise the possibility that the president of the United States violated federal campaign-finance laws.

The Wall Street Journal found that Mr. Trump was involved in or briefed on nearly every step of the agreements. He directed deals in phone calls and meetings with his self-described fixer, Michael Cohen, and others. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has gathered evidence of Mr. Trump’s participation in the transactions.

There’s much more but why step on the lede?