Wanna Understand Trump? Think Omerta
June 12, 2017
Let’s imagine for a moment that Donald Trump is totally innocent and his campaign did not knowingly welcome or accept Russian assistance during the 2016 election, any other
Trump acts as though he’s “untouchable”… with all the confidence of a crooked mayor knowing he has the cops on his payroll. A Mob Boss that’s in control of the police dept. No need to worry about any investigation. He’ll just order them to drop it, and if they don’t, fire them and replace them until he finds someone who will (a few weeks ago we discussed Nixon’s
Before Congress had approved Trump’s pick of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, the job was temporarily filled by the former Assistant AG Sally Yates… again at Trump’s insistence. Yates was fired the week before Sessions was confirmed when she started bringing up the fact she had warned the Trump campaign months before that Michael Flynn lied about his lobbying activity and was a potential blackmail risk, yet Trump hired him anyway. Session was approved a week later in a contentious vote that was anything but
Then came James Comey. Like Bharara & Yates before him, Trump had personally asked Comey to stay on and never hinted as to having any problem with his past work. Yet, suddenly, he was fired, and the excuse given (his mistreatment of Hillary), still doesn’t pass the Smell Test.
It is a rare day when Senator Lindsey Graham and I agree on anything, but yesterday on “Face the Nation”, he pointed out that Russian meddling does NOT necessarily mean Trump’s win wasn’t legitimate. He was absolutely correct in pointing out the two things are not mutually exclusive. It IS possible for Trump to have won
Comey testified last Thursday that he was so concerned about Trump’s “history of saying untruthful things”… later even going so far as to use the “L” Word several times… that he started taking contemporaneous notes after every encounter, and that he never felt the need to do so when working for Bush or Obama. That’s disturbing. The
A clearly confused Donald Trump accused Comey of lying under oath when he stated that Trump had suggested to him that he “drop the Flynn investigation”. Trump was asked whether he himself would ALSO testify “under oath”.
I’m still not entirely clear as to what Trump was trying to say in that clip. [ibid] The first time I heard it (and what prompted me to go back and record it) was him saying “Not under oath” after just saying he’d be willing to testify under oath “100%”. But after repeated viewings, Trump seems to be going back to Comey claiming he asked him for his “loyalty”… calling THAT “under oath…
So, back to Trump’s suspicious behavior.
I strive not to reveal details about myself as much as possible on this blog, but in this instance, I think it’s important to make an exception: I’m Italian. 3rd generation. The Mafia is very real,
One thing you learn working with The Mafia are their techniques for staying out of trouble. There’s a reason they called John Gotti
Another thing The Mob is known for: “Family is everything.” That’s why they’re known as Crime Families, because when you get right down to it, the only people they trust are “family”. There is NO outsider they completely trust, so their circle of most trusted advisers are members of their own family. Sound like anyone you know? Trump’s top advisors are his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared. And the more they feel the world around them is closing in on them as their paranoia grows, the more they turn to those close family members for
Once you realize that Trump views EVERYTHING through the prism of being a Mob-connected shady real estate developer, working with known criminals, making questionable business deals
So Trump ushered everyone else out of the room to talk to FBI Director Comey privately about Mike Flynn. Not even Attorney General Jeff Sessions and wunderkind
The mere fact Trump told everyone… even his AG… to leave the room before speaking to Comey suggests “consciousness of guilt”. He KNEW he was about to say or do something that might get him in trouble. As Bharara pointed out yesterday: Trump campaigned for days criticizing the fact former President Clinton met in private with
After Comey went public with their conversation (which everyone from Trump on down is now calling Comey “a leaker” for doing), Trump later said Comey “better hope there are no recordings” of their private conversation, yet refuses to say if he himself made a recording of their conversation. I’ve always thought it very odd for Trump to question whether or not he himself might have made a recording of something that took place in the Oval Office. Wouldn’t he know? Why not just say, “I have proof! I recorded our conversation!” Instead, he’s suggesting (not “promising”) he may release something in the next few days that would be “very disappointing” to his accusers (the only thing that would “disappoint” us is if this just turned out to be yet another lie.) BTW: Comey releasing his own private notes of a conversation that was NOT classified is not “leaking”. If that were the case, simply speaking to any reporter would be a crime. Fortunately, we have
If Trump has a recording that exonerates him, why would he
Or maybe he has good reason to believe “someone else” is bugging his office. Could it be that Trump has reason to believe the Russians have bugged the Oval Office? Might he have received subtle messages that suggest they overheard private conversations they could not possibly have known of otherwise? Maybe he thinks he just needs
Another point is that The Italian Mob isn’t the only “Mafia” out there. What about The Russian Mob? Could it be we are looking at the wrong Russians? Just a thought.
(UPDATE 7/27/17: A member of the Russian Mob, Oleg Deripaska, paid Paul Manafort $7.5 Million to manage the attempted 2008 redevelopment of
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June 12, 2017
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Posted in: Crime, Election, mystery, National Security, Right-wing Facism, Scandals
Trump Says Paris Accord Too Tough. Staff Justifies Backing Out Because It Wasn’t Tough Enough
June 5, 2017
During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly dismissed the very existence of Global Warming, even tweeting (and publicly declaring) that “global warming” was just something “made up by the Chinese” to gain an economic advantage as everyone else supposedly curbs their manufacturing while they ramp up their own. He also dismissed it as “
The concept of “Global Warming” is not new. It’s not a recent concoction of the Chinese made up in the 1990’s. And just WHO does Trump think is getting rich off promoting this “hoax”? Scientists? WHO has more financial motive to convince you “Climate Change” isn’t real? Scientists making teacher’s wages, or the Trillion dollar fossil fuel industry? If the goal of China is to convince others Global Warming is real only to distract other nations’ economies, how come China is one of the biggest investors in Green Technology, imposing some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world upon itself?
Former Vice President Al Gore, in his famed 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth“, talked about his college professor back in the 1960’s first describing the infamous climate “hockey stick” graph projecting a rapid rise in average global temperatures over the coming century:
And that projection has been right on the money.
Seven years ago, I wrote an op/ed regarding how Conservatives like George Will would frequently cite false claims in the late 1970’s of “Global Cooling” and “the coming Ice Age” to justify ridiculing fears over “Global Warming” today. There were several flaws to this argument. First and foremost, there was
So Trump has quite publicly taken the position of the Far Far Right… territory staked out by Evangelical End-Timers and tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists… that Climate Change is either an invention of Lefty Liberal Scientists as a way to keep that
Except that it’s China & India who signed the Paris accord (as did Russia) and are imposing tight (almost draconian) environmental restrictions on themselves while investing Trillions to fight a problem Trump thinks they don’t believe is even real. China… which was globally shamed at the
So Trump is justifying backing out of the Paris Climate Accord on the grounds it will stifle American industry because the restrictions are too tough, while he sends out members of his Administration… EPA Chief Scott Pruitt and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley out to argue that the Paris accord is “too weak” and “doesn’t do ENOUGH” to prevent climate change (so why bother doing anything, right?) The problem with that argument is obvious. Trump isn’t demanding tougher restrictions or saying he’ll only sign if pollution regulations set forth in the accord are stronger, so sending out his flying monkeys to dismiss the treaty as “too weak” doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Pruitt went on all three (if not more) of the major network news talk shows yesterday, citing on each and every one of them that famed NASA Climatologist James Hansen had called the Paris agreement “a fraud and a fake”… which is true, but only because he’s one of those saying it needs to be stronger… MUCH stronger… because the looming ecological disaster demands FAR more serious action. Meanwhile, Pruitt is citing Hansen as an excuse to do nothing (and I’d argue, using Hansen’s “fake and a fraud” criticism of the accord in such a way as to imply even NASA’s to Climatologist doesn’t believe in Global Warming… which isn’t close to true.)
Trump called the agreement “a bad deal”, but the Paris Accord was
Trump met with Al Gore twice to discuss environmental policy. The first time was as
Making the Paris agreement “binding” and tougher on China & India would NOT have convinced Trump to sign the accord, so he needn’t waste our time sending out staffers to whine about how “weak” the agreement was, as if to suggest THAT was the reason he didn’t sign. Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg summed it up best last week
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June 5, 2017
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Posted in: Energy Independence, Environment, Global Warming, Jobs, myth busting, Rants, Right-wing Facism, Right-Wing Insanity
Why Did Trump Send Jared Instead of Flynn? (and a disturbing thought)
May 29, 2017
The biggest news to break last week appears to be the fact that last December, then
Conservative columnist for the NY Times, Kim Strassel compared president-elect Trump’s opening
Both of them have solid points to make. Strassel is right that opening back-channel communications with a “hostile” nation isn’t new or prohibited. But Reid is right to ask why Trump sent his
Last Friday, the Washington Post reported that it was Kushner who requested the meeting with Russian Ambassador Kislyak in Moscow during their December 1st meeting at Trump Tower in NYC. But no one thinks Jared took it upon himself to meet with the Russians. He was doing someone’s bidding. Remember this meeting was kept secret (unlike Obama’s communication with Iran), only discovered via leak from someone inside the White House. Flynn was too high profile if you’re looking to do this in secret. “Who can we send?” Hmm.
The Post also reports Kislyak was “Taken aback” by Jared’s request… not to meet in Russia, but to meet in Russian government facilities instead of the U.S. Embassy where WE control the
Also in attendance at this meeting: the CEO of Russian
But the REAL questions *I* have that no one seems to be asking is…
WHY JARED? And why now/then?
Trump had already named Michael Flynn as his National Security Advisor even AFTER acting AG Sally Yates revealed Flynn had LIED to Trump and his transition team about his
As previously mentioned, a month later, “Blackwater” founder “Eric Prince” attempted to establish a secret back-channel with Russia via the Saudi’s. Why would he need to do this if Kushner had already done so the month before… unless of course that wasn’t the purpose of Kushner’s visit?
Kushner himself, thinking he was fit for the task, already shows a ridiculous (and possibly dangerous) level of hubris (the same hubris we are seeing as Trump offloads a disturbing number of his duties onto Kushner and him not saying “No”, including holding meetings with other heads of state as Trump’s personal representative, speaking on behalf of the entire US government.) Former NSA/CIA Director
“What manner of ignorance, chaos, hubris, suspicion, contempt, would you have to have to think that doing this with the Russian ambassador was a good or appropriate idea?”
Jared… like Trump… is also the son of a wealthy real estate mogul who inherited his father’s business, so I’m sure Trump sees a lot of himself in Kushner (one disturbing thought is whether Ivanka does too?) But as Trump’s own sons… Lyle… er, Donald Jr
And perhaps that’s why Trump sent Jared instead of Flynn. If so, is that’s Trump’s basis for deciding who’s qualified to perform such extremely delicate missions of national security… whether or not he sees himself in them? (after all, he did ignore all the warnings about Flynn and picked him anyway because they shared their despise of Hillary Clinton.)
A mission such as establishing communications with a foreign government is
Establishing communications with a foreign government is almost the definition of the State Department’s duties. So why not wait until he appointed
Not to start any conspiracy theories, but maybe it was because it wasn’t necessary? Maybe they ALREADY HAD an established relationship with Russia? And what if Putin saw the chaos as Trump floundered trying to pick someone to run the State Department… probably the most despised U.S. government agency in Russia after Hillary Clinton ran it and openly supported Putin’s opponent in their last election… and SUMMONED Trump to send someone to Russia for
And next thing you know, barely a week later on December 10th, just days after Jared’s return from Russia, Trump was announcing he was picking former Exxon CEO (and Russian “
It’s a terribly disturbing thought, and I know it flies in the face of my well-documented hatred of “Conspiracy Theories”, but it’s a nagging thought I just can’t shake, and a perfectly plausible suspicion that makes an awful lot of sense and answers a lot of questions that no one seems to be asking. So, I will: Did Russia “summon” Trump to send an envoy to Moscow? Did Trump send someone as unfit for such an important task as Jared because he was
If… like I suspect… Russia practically bankrolled bankrupt-Trump’s “self funded” political campaign and now has enough dirt on him to send him to prison for
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May 29, 2017
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Posted in: mystery, National Security, Politics, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Scandals, Seems Obvious to Me
Tillerson and Clapper Rebuke Claims Russia Didn’t Interfere in Our Election.
May 17, 2017
I still haven’t figured out why so many people who claim to hate Trump absolutely refuse to believe Russia meddled in the 2016 election. They demand “Proof!” that it really happened, and when you show them that proof, they dismiss it out of hand and use Trump’s own “fake news!” pejorative to justify their doubt. Still butthurt over what The Media allowed the Bush Administration to get away with, they cite things like “the same Media told us Saddam had WMD’s!” Well, actually, no, that was
Yet they happily quote absurd ranting raving conspiracy theorists like “Alex Jones”, who sees conspiracies everywhere and practically invented the term “false flag”, and makes his living making claims without evidence (or otherwise flies in the face of existing evidence), to “prove” their own machinations are correct.
It’s also incredibly stupid. When you have the Tweeter-in-Chief HIMSELF publicly admitting he did things his own staff tried to claim he didn’t do, does it make sense to continue to deny he did it? It’s not just the American media claiming Russia meddled in our election. This investigation has gone global. And unlike claims of “WMD’s”, they can actually DOCUMENT their claims with a papertrail. And of course, having Trump himself constantly contradicting his own staff because he just can’t resist tweeting at 3am doesn’t help.
The same people quick to believe “PizzaGate” is real and will actually ARGUE with you that the Clinton’s are connected to
Last Sunday on “Meet the Press”, Trump’s own Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, confirmed that
Defenders of Donald Trump… including Trump himself… frequently (falsely) cite the testimony of the former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper as testifying that there is “No evidence” that Russia meddled in our election and/or that anyone in the Trump campaign “colluded” with the Russians during the campaign. Both claims are dead wrong. Not only did
Clapper was invited on to ABC’s “ThisWeek” last Sunday to clear the air as to what EXACTLY he meant by “hasn’t seen”? Was he indeed clearing Trump of any allegations of collusion with Russia during the election? Clapper, choosing his words carefully, rebukes any claim that there is “no” evidence linking the Trump Campaign to Russia, and that what he testified to in no way clears Trump of such accusations:
Clapper went on to confirm the fact Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election:
So stop claiming Obama’s DNI James Clapper “cleared Trump” because Clapper himself says that’s not true. Even Donald Trump’s own
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May 17, 2017
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Posted in: Crime, Election, myth busting, National Security, rewriting history, Right-Wing Insanity, Scandals
GOP Healthcare Plan Would Be Largest Shift in Income From Poor to Rich in History
May 8, 2017
Last Tuesday night in his “Late Show” monologue, Stephen Colbert responded to Trump’s insulting treatment of fellow CBS reporter John Dickerson with
So if I may go on a little rant of my own…
Last week, the House passed H.R.1628 – The American Health Care Act of 2017. It was the GOP’s third attempt to repeal
But Republicans don’t DARE call it by its true name because
But perhaps the most heinous and indefensible policies in the “American Health Care Act” passed by the House is that it CUTS spite… er ‘principle'”, to help cover millions of the poorest Americans (Ironically, most of whom live in deep Red states in the South.)
The justification for cutting nearly $900 Billion in Medicaid subsides, according to Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus during
You KNOW a Republican bill is bad when even Fox isn’t buying it.
As Salon Magazine pointed out last March, two taxes on the richest Americans to pay for the Medicare expansion in the ACA that TrumpCare eliminates is
Republican Congressman Raul Labrador became the poster-boy for GOP cluelessness/heartlessness last week when he was caught on camera arguing to his constituents: “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care”. And it makes sense that he’d say this because it’s a Republican Talking Point that has been drummed into their heads for eight years. The argument is that “Emergency Rooms are required by law to provide care even if you can’t afford to pay. Ergo, no one dies due to an inability to afford health care.”
As the cook said to waitress Kelly Bundy, “You are one whopping moron!”
Let’s set aside for the moment that Emergency Room care is the most costly form of care there is and when patients can’t pay either the government pays or they swallow the cost. Forget that for now. Here are just a few scenarios
Scenario #1: Imagine a guy develops an infection (infected cut, steps on a nail, whatever) but he doesn’t have insurance, so he tries to treat it himself at home. But as time goes on, the infection gets
Scenario #2: You develop cancer. But you can’t afford treatment (chemo, radiation or both) so you never get treated. By the time you are so sick you are taken to the ER, the cancer has spread throughout your body and you die.
Scenario #3: You have diabetes and your kidney’s start to shutdown. You need dialysis but don’t have insurance and can’t afford to pay out of pocket. You never get treated and you die.
Scenario #4: You develop the flu. You can’t afford to go to the doctor so you try to treat it yourself at home using
Scenario #5: You develop the flu and try to treat it yourself. But you have small children. The baby catches your flu, develops a high fever and dies before you can get her to the hospital.
That’s just five scenarios off the top of my head where not having access to routine care could be deadly. Are you telling me no Republican is capable of envisioning a scenario where a person could get so sick even the ER can’t save them? Apparently, NO ONE WHO GOES TO THE E.R. EVER DIES IN GOP LAND (or Congressman Labradoodle’s world.) These people make me want to vomit.
When President Carter ran for reelection against Reagan in 1980, Reagan criticized Carter for allowing the National Debt to “balloon” to an ungodly “$800 Billion dollars” (Reagan then proceeded to more than TRIPLE 204 years worth of Debt to
The GOP’s Health care bill would be the largest shift in income from the Poor up to the Richest Americans in U.S. history. Tell us again Trump voters how
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May 8, 2017
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Posted in: Healthcare, Jobs, Money, myth busting, Party of Life, Right-wing Facism, Taxes
Trump Failures Demonstrating Why You Can’t Run Government Like a Business
May 1, 2017
It was touted as his biggest selling
“Governments” are not “businesses”. They are not run for profit. They exist solely to provide their citizens with services. Services necessary to maintain a healthy stable society.
For example, to survive in a modern society, people need to work. That means building schools and hiring teachers to educate our children so they can do those jobs. It means building roads to get to work, and get to the stores to purchase the products people produce. If you don’t drive, it means providing buses, bus stops, bus drivers and bus stations. If you DO drive, it means providing places to obtain a drivers license, providing highway patrol officers to ensure public safety. It means traffic
Trump is presently promising “The largest tax cut in history”… something EVERY Republican president since (and including) Reagan has promised. And when asked how the country can afford such massive tax cuts without exploding the Debt/Deficit, Trump’s answer is the same answer all of his Republican predecessors gave: “growth” would offset the cost.
When Reagan slashed taxes in 1981, the Deficit exploded, unemployment continued to soar to
After him, Bill Clinton RAISED taxes on the wealthy in what Newt Gingrich called “the largest tax increase in history” that he was CERTAIN would send the country plunging into another Recession. Instead, by the end of his second term, we had balanced the budget (twice) and unemployment had fallen to just 3.9%.
Then Bush-43 told voters on the campaign trail that the fact we were taking in enough tax revenue to pay off the deficit, we were clearly taxing people too much (ergo, we will NEVER pay off the Debt under a Republican president because the moment revenue exceeds our expenses, they will use it to justify another tax cut.) “It’s not their money! It’s YOUR money!” Bush told cheering crowds. And when he became president, he passed another massive tax cut that he promised “would pay for itself with all the growth it would create.” Instead, the Deficit exploded, the global economy tanked, we went from a projected $250 Billion Surplus to a $1.4Trillion dollar Deficit, and sent unemployment soaring that would hit 10% before President Obama was able to pass his “stimulus”.
Like President Clinton, President Obama raised taxes too. The result? The Deficit was cut by 2/3rds, unemployment fell to just 4.6%, and the economy was creating over
And now Trump is promising to Repeat the mistakes of the last three Republican presidents before him by slashing taxes once again, promising that the inevitable growth will offset the cost.
Republicans are ideologues. History be damned. If something “sounds right”, it MUST be true.
Businesses are not Democracies. They are Dictatorships, where one person… the “CEO”… makes all the decisions and does not have to answer to anyone. Trump is not used to having to answer to others before he’s permitted to do something. If they want something done, they just do it… well, maybe not themselves personally. Most CEO’s… like Donald Trump… typically “farm out” individual duties. They hire (as Trump himself put it) “the best people” to do individual jobs for them (such as putting Rick Perry in charge of our nukes, a befuddled former brain surgeon in charge of housing, and a lobbyist paid by Russia advising him on national security). Rarely does the CEO of a company do all the work themselves. In fact, during the campaign,
The problem is, the president can’t just hand off his duties to a subordinate. The VP does not have the authority to sign legislation or set policy. So when Trump said two weeks ago
One hundred days in office, Trump has ZERO policy accomplishments. The ONLY campaign promise he can point to as having accomplished since becoming president is getting
“Repealing ObamaCare” AND covering “preexisting conditions” without a mandate was going to be easy-peasy-orange-squeezy, and he knew how to make Mexico pay for The Wall. I’m sure he believed the job of president was to be “CEO of the entire country” (aka king) and it was Congresses job to fulfill the president’s every wish (which makes it easier to understand why Conservative voters blame Obama exclusively for everything and leave the most obstructionist Congress in history blameless.) Suddenly, being president is “hard” once again, and running the country isn’t the same as running a corporation.
On the flip side, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard Republicans pronounce “America is a Republic, not a Democracy!” They love saying that because in their diminutive
So America isn’t a business. And Republics don’t require Republicans to lead them. Is there ANYTHING about government Republicans get right?
Throughout the campaign, Trump complained bitterly of “all of President Obama unconstitutional Executive Orders.” And I have NO doubt that Trump believed at that time that ALL “Executive Orders”,
To quote Trump himself told The Associated Press two weeks ago: “Here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government involves heart, whereas in business most things don’t involve heart. In fact, in business you’re actually better off without it.”
And 62 million Americans said, “Yes, we want a heartless corporate tycoon in charge of our government and making decisions that affect our lives, because THAT is how we’ll ‘Make America Great Again’.” People without heart… without empathy… are called “Sociopaths” and have no business running
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May 1, 2017
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Posted in: General, Greed, Money, myth busting, Politics, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Seems Obvious to Me, Taxes
First 100 Days: Can We Say the Honeymoon Is Over If It Never Began?
April 24, 2017
Last October, just ahead of the November election, Trump released a list of promises he intended to fulfill within his On With America” that helped elect the first Republican Majority in the House in 40 years.
The significance of the “first 100 days” was invented by FDR, who pointed out that a president typically is never more popular than in the brief period when they first take office. And with a majority of the support of the American people behind them, they have the best chance of getting their agenda passed than at any other time in office. Over time, it became known as “the honeymoon phase” of any president. And as the saying goes, “It all goes downhill from there.” So if this was “The honeymoon”, what do you think the rest of the marriage will look like? Will we still be couple four years from now?
Donald Trump’s “honeymoon phase” comes to an end next Saturday, and with lots of questions being thrown at him about what he hopes to get done before then, he now calls the
So let’s look at some of the things Trump believed he’d accomplish in just his first 100 days in office:
18 promises divided into three categories: “Clean up Corruption and Special Interests”, “Protect Workers”, and “Restore
Right off the bat, promising to “Clean up Corruption and Special Interests” didn’t even make it past naming his cabinet/staff before even taking office. Trump appointed at least two lobbyists to serve in his administration (Trade Rep Lighthizer and most notoriously, Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign after only three weeks for lying about it), not to mention Paul Manafort… who was paid millions to lobby the Ukrainian government on behalf of Russia… was the first to RUN Trump’s campaign, and then appointed SIX former
Six actions to fight corruption & Special Interests:
#1 (of 18): Propose term limits on Congress. This failed promise is striking because it required absolutely no effort on his part. He didn’t need to write a bill or even negotiate with members of Congress. All he had to do was say, “I want Congress to draft a Constitutional Amendment placing term limits on members of Congress.” His first
#2 Enact a “hiring freeze” on all Federal workers. He did this. It’s an incredibly stupid move Republicans just love and try all the time because they think it saves money, but the problems it creates ALWAYS ensures such a ban is temporary… and I do mean ALWAYS. Because the job of government is to serve the people, and the number of people needing to be served doesn’t stop growing just because you freeze the number of people serving them. Lines get longer, stacks of paperwork grow, and employees rack up more overtime pay… until finally there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Waiting rooms fill up and call centers become overwhelmed. And in the end, you end up having to hire more people anyway while all you’ve succeeded in doing is pissing off an awful lot of people for no reason. But congrats Donald, you got this one done!
#3 Require that two regulations are abolished for every one new regulation passed. No way to know if this is a promise “kept”. Trump has gleefully repealed “needless” regulations protecting public health (like allowing coal mines to dump poisonous coal ash loaded with mercury in our
#4 A five year ban on anyone becoming a lobbyist after leaving the White House. President Obama enacted
#5 A lifetime ban on lobbying the White House on behalf of a foreign government. Of course, there was Flynn, who was already a paid lobbyist for Turkey serving as Trump’s National Security adviser, and as noted earlier, Manafort lobbying on behalf of Russia, but we should also consider
(Additional reading: “Trump Is Secretly Filling Government With Hundreds Of Lobbyists And Far-Right Conspiracy Theorists”.)
#6 A complete ban on foreign lobbyist raising money for U.S. elections. Other than the restrictions (aka: broken promises) mentioned above regarding becoming lobbyists or lobbying on behalf of a foreign government, Trump has proposed no new laws nor sign any executive orders prohibiting political candidates from raising money from foreign interests (and I personally suspect this is a rule Trump himself violated in spades while running for the White House as he made absurd business deals with foreign governments who paid him outrageous sums of money to earn his favor and fund his campaign.)
Seven actions to “Protect Workers”
#7 Announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA. Good news! He did that… announced his intention to renegotiate NAFTA. He never had the power to do it on his own, and we tried to tell him he was making a promise he couldn’t possibly keep, but he DID declare his desire to “renegotiate NAFTA” on his third day in office, but the
#8 Withdraw from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). Well, you can’t “withdraw” from something we never joined (Obama wanted it but Hillary flipped to oppose it, so there wasn’t any point.) But Trump did indeed keep his promise to oppose the TPP. This is the only Trump policy promise I supported and am glad he kept.
#9 Designate China as a “currency manipulator”. As mentioned in the opening, this was one of Trump’s “Day One” promises. But it didn’t happen on “Day One”… or “Day 30″… or any other day for that matter. Instead, he declared that they WEREN’T in fact
#10 Direct officials to ID any & all trade abuses by foreign governments. On March 31st, Trump instructed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to begin that investigation, which we can only assume is ongoing. But if the two most
#11 Lift restrictions on some of the dirtiest and potentially deadly forms of energy production in the U.S. And he did just that, first approving the construction of the ridiculous “Keystone XL” pipeline… with the stipulation it be made exclusively with
#12 Lift the obstruction of projects like the Keystone XL. Covered above.
#13 Cancel billions in payments to the U.N. and use that money to pay for infrastructure. Perhaps “billions” over time, but Trump has promised to cut $500 Million in payments to the U.N. fund to fight Global Warming. Shocker I know. But when you believe Climate Change is
Five actions to “Restore security & rule of law”
#14 Cancel every unconstitutional Executive Action ordered by Obama. Republicans are such idiots. Arguably I could label this one true since NO EXECUTIVE ORDERS ARE “UNCONSTITUTIONAL”, so Trump failing to cancel all of Obama’s EO because none of them were “unconstitutional” would technically be true. When it comes to how the government operates, the president can dictate whatever policy they choose. They CAN’T impose “laws” that affect private industry or violate people’s rights (THAT would be “unconstitutional”), but requiring government contractors pay a higher minimum wage than the private sector is WELL within the presidents power. If “Executive Orders” of and by themselves were “unconstitutional”, Trump would be in big trouble having already signed
#15 Begin the process of replacing Scalia. He accomplished this too. It took Congress breaking with over 100 years of tradition and going “nuclear”… thus ensuring the Supreme Court will become filled with ideologues voted in straight down Party lines for generations to come (assuming we survive that long.)
#16 Cancel funding of sanctuary cities. This is currently in progress and may or may not be done by Saturday. This is another shortsighted moronic Republican touchstone (like the “hiring freeze”). Yesterday on ABC’s “ThisWeek“,
#17 Begin deporting the “two million” violent criminals here illegally. Not really sure how to grade this one. We ALREADY deport anyone here illegally that is arrested in the commission of a crime. That’s not new. So to “start deporting two million undocumented criminals”… one must actively FIND them. And that would require
#18 Trump’s “Muslim ban”. He tried (three times) and failed (three times) to get his unconstitutional “Muslim ban” passed. The most glaring thing about Trump’s Muslim ban was all the nations he DIDN’T include… countries from which actual terrorist attacks have been launched, but which had powerful business interests with the United States… including several with Trump branded hotels in them. Hmm. But as recent events have shown
So, Trump is 9, 8 & 2 on his “first 100 day” promises, and most all of the ones he kept, are horrid (“No Polluter Left Behind”). Getting Gorsuch passed required Congress to break the system in a way from which we might never recover, and most of his failures failed… not for lack of trying, but because wiser heads prevailed in obstructing him (like his “Muslim Ban”.)
What is most significant about this list is not how little he actually achieved, but how little he clearly understands about how government works, making promises to do things that were not within his power (like unilaterally repealing laws passed by Congress.) In Trump’s mind, he’s wildly popular (remember his bizarre claim of actually winning the popular vote?) and has the support of the American people on his side because we all want exactly what he wants, therefore, Congress
Only to find out it’s not even what a majority of REPUBLICANS want.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am THRILLED Trump failed at pushing through his
Whether or not you see these as Trump “successes” depends upon whether you see defunding the EPA and deregulating polluters as “successes”. If you’re a neoconservative Luddite with less sense than God gave
…then you probably think (pardon my French) that Trump is a brilliant man that is going to save the country. Former labor secretary Robert Reich
Last week, in a stunning display of denial that is rapidly becoming Trump’s trademark (see: “Popular vote” above), he actually claimed: “No administration has accomplished more in their first 100 days” than he has… which of course isn’t CLOSE to being true. Trump’s most recognized promises… building a Mexican border wall and getting Mexico to pay for it, repealing ObamaCare, replacing ObamaCare with “something great that covers everyone”, and his “Muslim Ban”… ALL massive failures. He tried to take credit for excellent employment figures in the first two months of the year as the end of the Obama economy fades, but made excuses for the first
For every Trump failure there’s a flip-flop. His promise to make Mexico pay for the wall? Now he’s threatening to shutdown the government if Congress doesn’t give him
If Trump does shutdown the government this week over a budget dispute, he would be the first president in U.S. history to do so in his
He already has the lowest approval rating of any president in their first 100 days. Woo-hoo! Trump’s “historic” presidency!
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April 24, 2017
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Posted in: General, myth busting, Partisanship, Politics, rewriting history, Right-Wing Insanity
Debunking This Syria Conspiracy Stupidity (and saying goodbye to the tinfoil hat brigade)
April 10, 2017
Back when all my friends were going bonkers over “Star Wars” in the late 1970’s, I was obsessed with “
Then I grew up.
Once I started asking questions, the stories started to fall apart. Nothing stood up to scrutiny. Have I mentioned lately that I used to be a Republican? I stopped believing what Republicans were telling me for the same reason. Nothing I was told ever stood up to even the lightest of scrutiny (not to mention frequently steeped in racism and religious dogma.) Asking questions saved me (and my sanity.)
Anyone who has been following this blog for a while knows two things about me:
The VERY ELECTION of Donald Trump seems to have birthed an entire legion of tinfoil hat wearing “Conspiracy Theory” paranoids. Hey, I get it. I supported Bernie, and the fact Cheetolini occupies the White House today still defies belief. But there was no “conspiracy” against Sanders and the Media didn’t decide the Primaries OR the General Election winners. The
Like others have said: if you could reason with zealots, there wouldn’t BE any zealots.
And now, with this counter-attack on a Syrian airfield in response to their use of chemical weapons… and let’s not gloss over that detail as we grow numb to the words. “
Seriously? Okay, let’s pause for a moment and use some common sense here.
What is more likely?
a) A man who has been bombing & starving rebel critics of his administration for seven years and has all but turned Aleppo to dust saw an opportunity to wipe out his opponents
OR
b) Less than 24 hours after Trump referred to Assad’s presidency as “acknowledging [a] political realit[y]”, he then disguises American fighter jets as Syrian S22’s and orders them to fly in and drop chemical weapons we DON’T have on Syrian children in an attack that all but destroys the friendly relationship he was building with Putin making Trump look like a naive fool? And in a massive conspiracy not seen since Roswell, not a single pilot with a guilty conscience over dropping chemical weapons on children to come forward and say, “No, it wasn’t Syria. It was me.”
…because those are your options.
Some disbelievers claim this was a distraction from the salacious approval of Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court via the “nuclear option”. Hardly. Republicans acting like Republicans isn’t a catastrophe worthy of committing secret war crimes by dropping chemical weapons on children that would result in the Trump Administration being tried in The Hague for War Crimes should the truth ever come out. The “risk/benefit” ratio is wildly off there.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve bumped heads with these past few days demanding “Proof!”, then respond to me by posting links to unverifiable videos on YouTube that are impossible to verify and without attribution, or links to websites that look like they coded it in their mother’s basement, citing questionable sources, produced by people they know absolutely nothing about who could FAR more easily be producing complete fiction to cloud the evidence to protect the guilty. They simply accept these questionable sources as fact because they confirm what they already believe to be true. One of the most popular video “proofs” I repeatedly get are links to a “reporter” named “Eva Bartlett” “demolishing” critics that dare suggest Assad is the aggressor and the rebels are anything but devious terrorists. But Bartlett is NOT a “reporter”. She works for no news agency and isn’t on the ground in Syria. She’s a Canadian blogger that works for “Russia Today” and has dedicated herself to defending Assad (one popular video is of her responding to another Canadian reporter at a conference… hosted by the Syrian government and invited to speak at their behest… where she makes a number of claims, including a popular one among the
They are wildly untrusting of Western Media, yet readily accepting of what documented vicious tyrants like
Now a bit of history…
Following the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979-80, our greatest enemy was Iran. And when the Reagan Administration took over in 1981, they decided “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, so they befriended Saddam Hussein (who had been at war with Iran for years.) And they gave (conventional) arms (and money) to Saddam (and… as we discovered later… to Iran too as part of the
Then, at the very end of the Reagan Administration, Saddam used chemical weapons yet again… this time on his own people. Iraq has always been a nation of three violently opposite religious sects: The Shia, The Sunni’s and The Kurds. The Kurds despised Saddam and wanted him gone. And apparently the feeling was mutual as Saddam actually dispatched agents to assassinate Kurds that dare leave Iraq to live in London or Germany. Sounds completely
In March of 1988, Saddam attacked the Kurdish occupied town of Halabja with chemical weapons. Again, we turned a blind eye (until Bush Jr used it as an excuse to invade Iraq in 2003.) “Why would he attack his own people” some of you might ask? (As you are asking of Assad today.) Because, as I already pointed out, they hated Saddam, launching attacks trying to assassinate him (and years later, a Kurdish
In 1990, President George Herbert Walker Bush’s “Ambassador to Iraq” was a woman named April Glaspie. That July, Saddam delivered a message to President Bush that he wished for “friendship” between Iraq and the United States, then… just one month later… invaded the neighboring kingdom of Kuwait. The month after that (September), Glaspie personally visited Saddam, shook his hand, and gave him the greenlight, telling him: “We have no opinion on your
But the war in Kuwait dragged on… and on… and on… into 1991. The Kuwati’s had hardly no military to speak of (nothing to compare to Saddam’s “fourth largest army on the face of the earth” after the U.S., China, and Russia) offered little in the way of resistance. Then, news of “atrocities” (same real, some fake) begin to reach the U.S. Media, literally embarrassing the Bush Administration into responding.
And by late February 1991, Saddam had been kicked out of Kuwait and was now our sworn enemy.
Are you noticing the parallels yet? In December, then
And just as Saddam was told we wouldn’t interfere in 1990,
And this is where the doubters ask for “proof!” despite the fact there is nothing unusual or out-of-character for him here. “Assad would be “crazy” they proclaim to do this now “when he’s so close to victory”. That’s quite an assumption there. “So close to victory?” Says who? The fighting has been going on for seven years, and Aleppo fell four months ago, yet Assad’s opponents continue to fight.
First off, this was an aerial bombing. And launched just hours after Trump said we wouldn’t pursue regime change in Syria. Russia freely admits that. Russia (and Assad’s) defense against the accusation that Syria dropped “chemical weapons” (
Second question: Is it possible they are telling the truth about the chemical weapons released in the attack as belonging to the rebels, only to aerosol when bombed and carried away by the smoke? There are a number of problems with that scenario: One, the dispersal area is just too large to have come from individual warehouses being blown up and having the chemicals either rain down or spread by smoke. If this were the case, the chemicals would have dispersed downwind of the areas targeted, not localized at the point of impact. Yet maps of the areas that suffered chemical exposure are all localized with almost no drift:
WMD affected areas, Idlib Syria
It is impossible to verify whether of not every location where chemical weapon exposure occurred had a hidden cache of chemical weapons within it, but (Two) try to imagine the extraordinary stroke of good (bad?) luck required of all those Syrian fighter pilots to have stuck SO many hidden caches of deadly (and apparently wildly unstable) chemical weapons spread across Idlib province. They freely admit they had no idea they were there, and yet somehow they just happened to locate a dozen such caches precisely where they bombed? Assad needs to stock up on lottery tickets before his luck runs out.
Three, “Transporting” such dangerous chemical weapons for miles across Idlib Province would be incredibly dangerous with a high risk of accidental exposure that could kill thousands should an accident occur. So if the rebels produced those weapons, they didn’t move them around. They would have had to of been made locally… or more precisely at the very site that was bombed. Why? What use are they to them there?
Four, the ability to make such weapons is not a common skill, and not something you learn quickly. This would mean minstrels chemical bomb makers traveling from town to town to make a cache of chemical weapons for storage “right there” and then moving on. That seems unlikely… not impossible, but highly improbable.
And five, now we must ask, “How did they intend to use them?” As I’ve already pointed out, they don’t have an air force, and transporting large quantities of the weapons by ground is too dangerous. You’re not going to use them locally and risk exposing your own people, so that pretty much leaves one option: suicide bomber. Drive to Damascus some
Number of suicide bombings in Syria over the past seven years that involved chemical weapons? ZERO.
Defenders of Assad keep asking “Why now when he was so close to victory?” So then, couldn’t we ask: If the rebels were “so close to defeat”, why would they sit on these huge stockpiles of chemical weapons and not use them? That makes even less sense.
Another popular question: “I thought Assad gave up all his chemical weapons in 2014?” That’s a fair question. Problem is, we just don’t know. According to their ally Russia, Syria turned over 1,300 tons of chemical weapons to them claiming it was their entire stockpile. It was also the job of Russia to close down all of Syria’s chemical weapons production facilities. Russia admits they were only able to shutdown
As I’ve pointed out in other op/eds recently, the seething
It is now “a given” and forlorn “fact” to them that “Hillary Clinton gave those chemical weapons to the rebels” when she was secretary of state. So you ask simple questions like “How?”, “Where did she get them (since we don’t make them)?” and “How did she transport them to the rebels in Syria?” Often what I get in return are unrelated links to claims of what an evil person she secretly is, links to
They like to compare the “false claims Saddam had WMD’s” to these claims against Assad, but when I point to the fact that both Saddam and Assad used chemical weapons against
During “Meet the Press” yesterday, Trump’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley pointed out that Russia’s first reaction upon hearing the news of chemical weapons turning up in the attack was to defend Assad, not express horror or concern over victims of a chemical weapons attack. That seems quite disquieting in its own right. You hear civilians… including women and children… were exposed to chemical weapons, and your first reaction isn’t shock or questioning, but to defend someone THEY KNOW (remember, they admit to the bombing AND have troops stationed at that airfield) just dropped the bombs resulting in that chemical exposure? Lesson One in trying to convince people you’re not
And on a personal note, people bashing “The Media” as “an enemy of the American people” is an anathema to the 1st Amendment and a greater threat to Democracy than anything these Conspiracy Theorists seem to think is actually going on.
People tend to not to ask questions about what they see/hear/read when that something tells them what they already want to believe to be true, is. Fox “news” has built an entire media empire on that very concept… and now I see people claiming to be “Progressives” doing it too. Fox viewers are repeatedly rated as the least well informed consumers of news in the country. Some polls have even shown that people who consume NO news at all are often better informed than Fox viewers because they come to a conclusion first, then look for a source to “confirm” it. And anyone who tells them differently is either “a liar”, “badly misinformed” because they don’t get their news from the “right” sources (like they do), or just don’t know what they’re talking about. “Facts be damned” and there’s no point in trying to present them with evidence to refute those beliefs.
And a greater question: In light of these recent brutal attacks, will Trump now recognize what the Refugees are fleeing from and show more sympathy towards letting them in? (If we go by Nikki Haley, that answer is “No”, calling for “even more” stringent background checks before even considering giving these people safe harbor. What have we become?)
Postscript: The past weeks insanity led me to do something I’ve never done before and delete nearly four dozen of my so-called “Facebook friends” who devolved into insult spewing, Conspiracy babbling, children. I just couldn’t take it any more. The
Next weekend, M.R.S. will be on Easter hiatus, but I promise to return two weeks from now with more insights and history. See you then!
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April 10, 2017
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Posted in: fake scandals, Middle East, mystery, myth busting, National Security, Rants, Right-Wing Insanity, Seems Obvious to Me, Terrorism, War
GOP Leads in ‘Unprecedented’ Behavior re: SCOTUS Nomination
April 3, 2017
You have to go back to 1991 for the last time a Supreme Court vacancy was filed when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. The nominee was “Clarence Thomas“, and his nomination went down in history as one of the most controversial picks ever after a former subordinate of his at the EEoC, Law Professor Anita Hill, testified that she had been subjected to years of sexual harassment by her boss, Mr. Thomas. And while Democrats won the White House in 1992, Republicans have controlled either the House, the Senate, or both TEN of the last twelve congresses (27 of the last 31 years.) So it is only by an incredible stroke of luck that the Supreme Court doesn’t have more Conservatives on it that it already does. (Two weeks ago, my weekly Op/Ed was an acknowledgement that fighting the Gorsuch nomination… an even swap of one far-Right judge for another… was not worth distracting from the FAR more serious effort to investigate the Trump Administrations dealings with Russia during the campaign. I ended up DELETING that Op/Ed when I learned that Gorsuch endorsed the appointment of prominent
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted exactly that during “Meet the Press” yesterday, claiming Democrats would likewise have held the SCOTUS seat open for 13 months if the roles had been reversed. Chuck Todd asked McConnell the obvious
But Democrats requiring a 60 vote “Super Majority” before a vote can be held on a nominee wouldn’t be the only ones breaking with “200+ years of precedent”. Should the GOP decide to use
And it’s not as simple as Republicans simply saying, “We hereby pass a new rule that says it now takes only 51 votes for a SCOTUS nominee to be brought up for a vote.” No. Because changing the Senate Rules ALSO requires
To get around this, Republican will have to creatively reinterpret Senate rules such as to claim that rendering SCOTUS nominations immune to the filibuster, they aren’t “changing” an existing rule. Noooo. They’re “creating a NEW rule.” Setting precedent. And THAT only requires
If that sounds a little smarmy to you, you’re not alone. The GOP absolutely does not have the high road on this, and for them to act like innocent victims who would simply be taking advantage of a clearly defined “right” they are entitled to if Democrats engage in “unprecedented” behavior, by my count, they’ll lead the “unprecedented” olympics
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April 3, 2017
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Posted in: Civil Rights, myth busting, Party of Life, Politics, rewriting history, Right-Wing Hypocrisy
Trump Voters Are Discovering a Wish List is Not a Plan
March 27, 2017
“TrumpCare” went down in flames last week. Trump’s promise to “repeal ObamaCare on Day One” fell a bit short (by 61 days if not indefinitely)… because what we’ve ALL known all along is that the GOP didn’t have a “secret” alternate plan ready to go like they’ve been suggesting for years. On the campaign trail, Trump offered less than nothing when it came to specifics, only that
But it recent weeks, we also saw his Muslim Ban “plan” go down in flames for the second time after being told his “revised” version was just as unconstitutional as the first, with Trump responding that he should have just “stuck with the first” (unconstitutional/illegal/prohibited) “plan.”
And before that, it was the recognition that he really had no “plan” to get Mexico to pay for that Wall of his, and just as critics had been warning all along, Trump wants
The only “secret plan” Trump hasn’t tried & failed to enact yet is his “plan” to defeat ISIS (in his first 30 days in office.) But don’t expect any miracles there either.
Just as when Trump miraculously discovered (and apparently no one else was aware of) that “Reforming health care is more complicated than anyone realized” (and by “anyone”, he means “himself”), Trump is repeatedly caught completely unprepared to make good on his promises. (Remember last January when Republicans were
It should be clear to anyone paying attention at this point that Trump was under the impression he could legislate with GOP votes alone (despite not having anything close to
So blame Democrats. GOP can’t organize a two clown-car parade, but “blame Democrats.”
Remember President Obama’s first year when he had to repeatedly point out to Republicans the enormity of the
If you believe “promises = plans” and in taking credit (or casting blame) for the work of others, then it all makes perfect sense.
But at some point, Trump is going to have to actually legislate, and if he is suddenly in danger of looking like a failure, he’ll reach out to Democrats looking for a lifeline in hopes they’ll bail him out. He’d sellout the GOP faster than Mexico sells out of Trump pinatas if he thought it would help him save face. But don’t take the bait Democrats. You’ll get played like a cat plays with a toy mouse as Trump lavishes himself with praise for “reaching across the isle” to “get things done” in his quest to “serve the American people.” But like the fable of the toad who gave a scorpion a ride across the river only to get stung so they both drowned, you knew who he was when you met him. A dangerous clown. A carnival barker whose loyalty lies only to himself. You rehabilitate him and he runs back to the GOP’s welcoming arms as he makes to them as well.
“Wish Lists” are not “plans” any more than believing one had “the largest inaugural crowd in history” makes that so as well. Like the rest of the GOP, Trump does not have any “plans” he drew up in the middle of the night while on the campaign trail. I’m not entirely convinced he’s ever written anything that couldn’t be expressed in
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March 27, 2017
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Posted in: Healthcare, myth busting, Partisanship, Politics, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Right-Wing Insanity
The (In)Complete (and growing) List of Trump’s Russia Ties
March 13, 2017
(LAST UPDATE: 9/05/18)
I‘ve stated more times than I dare count that I abhor Conspiracy Theories. Claims that “9/11 was an inside job” belong in the same rubbish bin as Sasquatch and Elvis sightings. But the evidence of links between the Trump campaign/White House and Russia (for whatever reason) are documented fact (often by photograph and peoples’ own admission) and continue to grow so fast, it is getting
“I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away.” – Donald Trump press conference, January 11, 2017.
I keep hearing from so many Trumptonians who get a huge asinine belly laugh from any suggestion that Russia may be meddling in our Democracy (“My PopTart is stale! Blame Russia! Har! Har!”) Unless someone truly adores Russia and/or Putin, I can’t fathom for the life of me why anyone would rush to defend him/them, belittling any suggestion that Russia is anything but an innocent victim being targeted for character assassination by our “evil” Media. The closest I can fathom is some revulsion that… if true… it somehow benefits Hillary and/or could somehow miraculously make her president. I understand why you despise Hillary (okay, maybe not to your insane degree, but I did
I’m just curious what part of “the Russian thing” don’t they believe? Trump’s inexplicable fanboy love of Putin (even
Or what about appointing a lobbyist for the Russian government… Paul Manafort (whose campaign experience were the failed Ford & Dole campaigns) and is suspected of laundering tens of millions in Russian crime money… to run his presidential campaign?
And the list goes on (continued below.)
The List
Beside Russian “Medal of Friendship” winner Rex Tillerson mentioned above, we have:
Starting from the very beginning, as noted above, Trump’s second campaign manager Paul Manafort (hired after Corey Lewandowski was fired upon revelations of spousal abuse) was forced to resign when it was discovered that he lied about having worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Russian government in Ukraine and was paid millions of dollars at a time the United States was vociferously condemning Russia’s attempts to annex Ukraine. After his resignation, it was discovered that Manafort has also met with Konstantin Kilimnik,
(UPDATE 3/22/17: As early as 2005, Manafort was already offering his services on how he could “greatly benefit the Putin Government”. AP reports the Russian government paid Manafort
(UPDATE 6/28/17: Why choose someone like Manafort (a lobbyists for Russia deep in debt) to run your campaign for president? Perhaps because of his connections to vast sums of Russian money? Like his business ties to Russian oligarchs such as Dmytro Firtash, a major Party of Regions backer who in 2008 partnered with Manafort in an $850 million plan to redevelop the famous Drake hotel in New York City? “Firtash, who acknowledged to the U.S. ambassador that he got his start in business with the permission of a Russian crime lord […] is under federal indictment in the Northern District of Illinois for bribery. He is [presently] under arrest in Austria pending his extradition to the U.S..” – NBC News)
A Washington Post investigation revealed that
In 2008, John McCain declared, “We’re all Georgians now” after Russia invaded the former Soviet nation of Georgia. In 2014, the GOP took the side of Ukraine after Russia annexed Crimea, even calling for the U.S. to arm the
And just who might have made such a suggestion to Russia? Trump’s first (and ever so brief) National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn, who twice denied any communication with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, actually met with the ambassador
Flynn & Stein at Putin’s table at RT Anniversary Dinner 2015
(Update 3/17: State owned RT paid Flynn $33,750 to fly to Russia to attend this dinner. This does not include airfare for him and his son and accommodations at
(Update 7/11/17: GOP operative Peter W. Smith contacted Trump campaign advisor [and future National Security Advisor] Michael Flynn on
And Flynn didn’t meet the Russian ambassador alone. Traveling WITH Flynn to Trump Tower was Trump’s son-in-law and now “political adviser” Jared Kushner (
More recently, we have the case of former Senator turned Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who volunteered during his confirmation hearing that he had not spoken to anyone in the Russian Government while he was associated with the Trump campaign. In fact, Sessions HAD indeed met with the Russian ambassador twice during that time. He first stated that his meeting Ambassador Kislyak was so brief and inconsequential, it simply slipped his mind
Another Russian connection: Why did Trump try to appoint American oil industry consultant, real estate mogul and former reality TV star Carter Page from Merrill Lynch’s Moscow office to be a National Security Consultant to his campaign? Page not only criticized U.S. and NATO policy towards Russia, he did so from Moscow. The “Dixie Chicks” gotta be feeling the sting of that one.
In one of the more bizarre (and IMHO, significant) Trump/Russia connections was Trump’s sale of
(Addendum: Not only can Rybolovlev’s plane be seen at the same airport as Trump’s at multiple events, his yacht was also spotted docked near Trump’s biggest financial supporter and Breitbart News moneyman, Robert Mercer.)
Ever hear of Wilbur Ross before he was appointed to run of the Department of Commerce? Ross is a billionaire investor with close ties to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. Ross was the Vice-Chairman of
While no reported human or financial tie to Russia (yet), Trump’s Svengali, Steve Bannon, former head of Alt-Right racist conspiracy rag “Breitbart.com” who became Trump’s campaign manager and is now his Chief Political Strategist, is
Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with Mafia connections and served time in jail for stabbing a man in the face with the stem of a margarita glass, approached Trump with a plan to license his name to build skyscrapers (including “
(Update 9/12/17: More on the man Trump claimed to barely know here.)
Also part of the Trump/Sater scam, Tevfik Arif, another Russian real-estate mogul who served
Yet another Russian born real-estate mogul and business partner of Donald Trump is Alex Shnaider who partnered with Trump to build “Trump International Hotel and Tower” in Toronto. It may or may not be significant that Shnaider’s
You may remember that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus… though not tied to Russia himself, did violate ethics rules by personally requesting the FBI “knock down” any reports linking anyone in the Trump Administration to Russia. The FBI refused and the ethical breach was deemed nothing more than a “momentary” embarrassment for the Trump White House (on par with
Former British MI6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele was forced into hiding recently after publishing a dossier detailing a number of Trump/Russia ties as compiled by the
Among things Steele points out: It was barely 3 weeks after Paul Manafort took over running the Trump campaign in March of 2016 that Trump
(UPDATE #1: Not even 12 hours and we have our first update. Remember Trump’s pledge that the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines would be made exclusively using “American-made steel”? Well, scratch that. We have our first exemption and I’ll give you one guess who it benefits: 40% of the steel will now come from a Russian owned steel subsidiary operating in Canada.
(UPDATE #2 – After refusing to resign, Trump fires Federal Prosecutor Preet Bharara,
(UPDATE #2b – Deutsche Bank is under investigation as the largest known Russian money launderer obscuring the source of
(UPDATE #3 – 3/20/17: Secretary of State Tillerson announces he will be skipping an announced NATO summit to visit Moscow instead.)
(UPDATE #4 – 3/21/17: There is no question Russia was actively supporting Trump via a sophisticated online “bot” based propaganda campaign.)
…whether or not the Trump campaign actively participated is still being investigated.
(UPDATE #5 – 3/27/17: It was revealed today that not only did Trump’s son-in-law and close WH adviser Jared Kushner meet with Russian Ambassador Kislyak twice with Michael Flynn, he… along with another unnamed “top WH adviser”… also
(UPDATE 5b – 6/27/17: The Rachel Maddow Show reports that “VEB”, the bank Kushner met with, ISN’T A BANK. They have “No banking license”, “No cash”, and their entire board is made up of Russian government officials. The head of VEB, Sergey Gorkov, is not a banker but was trained at a “school” that trained KGB agents.)
(UPDATE #6 – 3/28/17: A USA Today investigation into the origins of Trump’s wealth find ties to at least TEN wealthy Russian businessmen with ties to the Russian
(UPDATE #7 – 4/4/17: Buzzfeed reports that the man Trump appointed as his “Foreign Policy adviser & Counter-terrorism expert”, Carter Page, was recruited as a Russian spy in 2013 (NYT report.) Their confirming source? Carter Page. More detail here.)
(UPDATE #7b – 4/4/17: In the above revelation about Carter Page, we also learn that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner… whom Trump seems to have tasked with EVERYTHING from building his border wall to achieving peace in the Middle East… met with one of the spies who recruited Page… Evgeny Buryakov, an employee of
(UPDATE #8 – 4/4/17: The Washington Post has revealed that the UAE (United Arab Emirates) arranged a meeting in Seychelles between Erik Prince… founder/owner of “Blackwater“, the largest private mercenary army in the word that rose to infamy during the Bush Administration for corruption, violence and violations of International law… and an unidentified Russian “close to President Vladimir Putin”, to discuss the lifting of sanctions last January. Prince is an avid supporter of Trump, raised
(UPDATE #9 – 4/11/17: More on Carter Page. It was leaked to the Washington Post today that he was the subject of a FISA Warrant requested by the FBI for suspected communication with the Russians during the presidential campaign. This is significant for several reasons: 1) This is the first report that a member of the Trump campaign themselves were the subject of an investigation and not merely “overheard” as we listened in on the Russians, 2) because FISA warrants are not easy to get and, 3) as the WaPo points out, is “the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents.”
(UPDATE #10a – 4/13/17: “UK Intelligence” (GCHQ) reports that they first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents. This is the earliest recorded report of interactions between the Trump Campaign and people working on behalf of the Russian government… before the Primaries even began.)
(UPDATE #10b – 4/14/17: So concerned was the director of GCHQ, that he *personally* contacted the head of the CIA… John Brennan… in the Summer of 2016. And so concerned was Brennan, that he contacts “eight top members of Congress” to report those findings.)
(UPDATE #11 – 4/25/17: Evidence emerging that Russia may be using the same hackers/strategy to hack the computers of French presidential
(UPDATE #12a – 4/26/17: As noted in #11, Russian meddling extends well beyond the election of Trump and promoting Le Pen in France. There is also suspicion Russia aided “Brexit“, Great Britain’s vote to leave the European Union [also a goal of Le Pen], and
(UPDATE #12b – 4/26/17: [ibid 12a link] Politico now reports that the more than half-million dollars paid to former
(UPDATE #13 – 5/7/17: While not directly connected to the 2016 race, Trump’s son Eric told a WBUR reporter in 2014 that Russia was behind
(UPDATE #14 – 5/5/17: The Washington Post and The AP report that the Trump Transition Team themselves warned Mike Flynn that the U.S. government may be monitoring his contacts with Russia. THEY KNEW yet they hired him anyway. The Obama Administration was so concerned about the Trump Campaign’s coziness with Russia that they waited until
(UPDATE #15 – 5/10/17: Donald Trump fires FBI Director James Comey one day after former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had been investigating connections between the Trump Campaign, Trump’s business interests, and Russia, and one week after Comey testified he had inadvertently “overstated” the number of emails Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor Huma Abadeen has forwarded to her husband Anthony Weiner in his infamous October 28th announcement he was reopening the investigation into her emails. Comey was not told in advance he was to be fired, only learning of his dismissal *while he was delivering a speech before FBI employees*.
(UPDATE #16 – 5/16/17: In the midst of his controversial firing of FBI Director Comey, Trump invites Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Kislyak to the Oval Office where he (inadvertently?) revealed Top Secret “
(UPDATE #17 – 5/18/17: Reuters reports finding evidence of 18 additional instances of contacts between Russia and the Trump Campaign, including Putin’s “fixer”, a former Soviet “lawyer” named Medvedchuk.)
(UPDATE #18 – 5/24/17: The lawyer Trump hired, Marc E. Kasowitz, to defend him against allegations of collusion with Russia is also the lead attorney in a federal civil lawsuit against “OJSC Sberbank”, which is majority-owned by the Russian government. Kasowitz is Trump’s longtime lawyer, who defended him in a failed libel case against the NYTimes, and against women claiming Trump sexually assaulted him (which was eventually settled), as well as assisting in the “Trump University” fraud case [ibid] which was also settled without admitting guilt.)
(UPDATE #19 – 5/25/17: The NYTimes is reporting that in the Summer of 2016, American spies investigating possible Russian interference in our election caught Russian officials “discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers
(UPDATE #20 – 6/08/17: Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony under oath corroborates most all reporting to date regarding Russian interference in the November 2016 election. Comey agrees to only testify regarding possible Trump Campaign connections in closed/private session.)
(UPDATE #21 – 6/15/17: Following their joint testimony before the Senate two weeks earlier, Trump asked the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, and to
(UPDATE #22 – 6/20/17: Bloomberg is reporting that Felix Sater, a Russian Mobster who swindled millions from investors, became
(Update #22b – 1/10/18: The released FusionGPS Testimony confirms (pg. 68) that Sater was “connected to the same Russian crime family that was at issue in the Prevezon case” (
UPDATE #23 – 7/8/17: Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort all met with Natallia Veselnitskaya, a Russian “adoption” lawyer with ties to the Kremlin, during campaign at Trump Tower in
UPDATE #23b – 7/10/17: “Uday Bevis Donald Trump Jr, after claiming last March he never participated in any campaign-related meetings with Russian nationals, now admits he met with Veselnitskaya but claims it was to discuss “Adoption”.
UPDATE #23c – 7/10/17: The likely REAL purpose of the meeting with Veselnitskaya? She is “best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers.” The law… passed under Bush and continued under Obama… infuriates Putin and wants it repealed. Russia’s response to the law was to halt Russian/American adoptions. But to lift that, we would have to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
UPDATE #23d – 7/14/17: The number of people on the Russia-side of the table in the meeting between Donald Trump Jr and Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya has grown to FOUR FIVE, including (
UPDATE #23e – 7/18/17: Newly revealed eighth person present as the secret meeting between Trump Jr and former Russian Prosecutor Veselnitskaya was notorious Russian money launderer “Ike Kaveladze” (like Samachomov,
Addendum: In 2008, Veselnitskya defended a man named Denis Katsyv, owner of “Prevezon Holdings” (see: #29) who was accused of laundering $230 Million dollars in Russia and ended up paying “Millions” in fines. So the presence of Kaveladze… with his own history on money laundering… at this meeting raises even more questions.
The Fredo 8
UPDATE #24 – 7/13/17: May 2015, the NSA notices a spike in Russian chatter regarding Trump just before he announces his candidacy. May 2016, U.S. surveillance suggests Russian funds flowing to Trump campaign.
UPDATE #25 – 7/19/17: Trump’s scheduled private meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 in Hamburg was scheduled for only 20 minutes but ended up lasting over an hour. Today we learn that later during dinner (with a hundred other people present), Trump sat next to Putin and had a SECOND private chant with him that last *another* hour. Trump did not invite his own translator, relying on Putin’s own translator. When news of the second private meeting was revealed, ONLY THE RUSSIANS spoke to the Press to describe the meeting and what was discussed.
UPDATE #26 – 7/25/17: My thanks to “The Rachel Maddow Show” for pointing out on their 7/24/17 episode that back in October… before the election… “CrowdStrike” (the same Internet Security organization that first detected the source of the hacking of the DNC) detected an unusual link between a computer server belonging to the Trump campaign and computer servers belonging to yet another Russian bank… “Alfa Bank”:
(After suspecting a bot attack on the Trump servers due to the amount of traffic) The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation… conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.
…When the researchers pinged the server, they received error messages. They concluded that the server was set to accept only incoming communication from a very small handful of IP addresses.
…Eighty-seven percent of the DNS lookups (from the Trump server) involved the two Alfa Bank servers. “It’s pretty clear that it’s not an open mail server,” Camp told me. “These organizations are communicating in a way designed to block other people out.”
According to “CrowdStrike”, this was a near “dedicated connection”… a “hotline”… between the two computer servers. As
UPDATE #27 – 7/27/17: In an update on 6/28/17 (above), I noted a link between Manfort’s Lobbying firm and “a Ukrainian oligarch named Dmytro Firtash in a plan to redevelop the famous Drake Hotel in New York.” Firtash “got his start in business with the permission of a notorious Russian crime lord.” That crime lord appears to be Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who was paid $7.35 million toward management fees for Manafort and his partners in connection with an investment fund, according to a court filing in the Cayman Islands. Deripaska once was denied entry to the United States because of alleged mafia ties.” Firtash himself was indicted by the Justice Department in 2014 over bribery allegations in India and is now living in exile in Austria.
Manafort’s company (of which Manafort has limited liability) is in debt to “pro-Russia interests” for as much as “$17 Million dollars.”
UPDATE #28 – 7/27/17: Trump nominates “Brian Benczkowski” to be the new head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. Benczkowski’s lawfirm, “
Benczkowski was a top aide to Jeff Sessions, both when Sessions was a senator and led Trump’s Justice Department transition team before returning to “
UPDATE #29 – 7/27/17: In May, the Sessions Justice Department abruptly
UPDATE #30 – 7/31/17: As mentioned in my recent update to Trump’s Russian Money Laundering Ties, New Republic investigative journalist Craig Unger documented Trump’s history of doing business with Russian criminals (both in government and the Russian Mob… which is redundant) going back decades (
UPDATE #31 – 8/1/17: The Washington Post is reporting that Donald Trump himself personally drafted his son’s statement regarding his meeting with Veselnitskaya, personally deciding to claim the meeting was regarding “adoption” instead of obtaining “dirt” on Clinton. This raises “Obstruction of justice” concerns (first raised by his firing of Comey), choosing to deliberately mislead the public (once again) suggests “Consciousness of guilt.”
UPDATE #31b – 8/2/17: The New York Times is reporting Trump talked to Putin at the G20 “for nearly an hour” (Trump claimed “like 15 minutes”) regarding his son the day before Don Jr’s statement. During an interview, Trump *volunteered* that he (too) talked to Putin about “adoption” (to bolster his son’s claim?) and even referenced his son’s meeting despite not even being asked.
UPDATE #32 – 8/29/17: The number of Russian-linked banks connected to Trump grows to 4. Sberbank (
Cohen emailed Sater back, announcing he arranged for Trump’s daughter Ivanka to travel to Moscow to discuss the project and perhaps meet with Putin himself, even arranging for him to allow her to sit in Putin’s personal chair. Ivanka dismissed the idea that she was anything but a tourist while in Moscow, but conceded she “may” have sat in Putin’s chair. And how many “tourists” are invited to sit in the Russian presidents chair inside the Kremlin? Seriously. This also quashes any idea Cohen wasn’t an enthusiastic supporter of Sater’s plan and didn’t discuss it with members of the Trump family.
UPDATE #32b – 8/29/17: The Washington Post reports that Cohen emailed one of Putin’s top aides, Dmitry Peskov, hoping (or so it appears) he could get Putin’s assistance in helping move the project along, telling him, “Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of
UPDATE #32c – 8/29/17: WaPo also reports that on the day of the third GOP Primary debate, Trump himself signed a letter of intent to pursue the “Trump Tower Moscow” deal. ABC News reports the proposed tower would have been “the tallest building in the world” had it of been built. At the time of the signing, Trump assured ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that his business had “no relationship to Russia whatsoever.” [ibid]
UPDATE #33 – 9/08/17: Donald Trump Jr testified for the second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and this time revealed three additional previously undisclosed contacts (in addition to his meeting at Trump Tower) between him and yet another Russian citizen, Russian
UPDATE #33b – 9/13/17: Video of Trump at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant praising the Agalarov’s as “one of the great families in Russia”.
UPDATE #34 – 9/21/17: The scrutiny of former campaign manager Paul Manafort has massively intensified in recent weeks, including reports of someone he did not know before the campaign (update: Manafort worked out of Trump Tower and was the business partner of
Previously, Manafort’s connection to a Kremlin-connected billionaire Russian mobster named Oleg Deripaska (Update #27 above) was noted. Now we know Manafort contacted Deripaska less than two weeks before the RNC Convention (where Trump would accept his Party’s nomination for president) and offered (in an email) to provide him with private briefings on the race. Manafort’s spokesman says this was simply him attempting to contact Deripaska “to collect a debt” (by using the offer of giving away secret campaign information, or the promise of “access” to the potential next president of the United States… as a lure?)
UPDATE #35 – 9/23/17: Manafort may have actually “encouraged” Russia to meddle in the 2016 presidential race. This might be connected to the recent revelation by Facebook that a Russian “Troll Farm” backed by the Kremlin
UPDATE #35b – “BTA Bank“, the largest bank in Kazakhstan, was awash in scandal in 2009 when it was discovered that the banks’ chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, secretly directed between
UPDATE #36 – 8/16/17: Trump WH started pushing the claim “Hillary colluded with Ukraine” TWO DAYS BEFORE Russian hackers released a “hacked” email suggesting Hillary colluded with Ukraine. How did the Trump White House know what was coming?
UPDATE #37 – 8/24/17: Rinat Akhmetshin (see #23d above), deputy head of Russian intelligence, who was invited by Veselnitskaya to meet with Don Jr in
UPDATE #38 – 10/13/17: CBS News reports that the lawyer representing Russian real estate mogul Aras Agalarov (see Update #33) released a statement from his client noting that a newly released email from Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya (dated
UPDATE #39 – 10/30/17: The Mueller Investigation hands down its first indictments in the Russia Investigation against former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Deputy Campaign Manager and Manafort business advisor Rick Gates, and Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. Gates was charged in connection to Manafort’s “money laundering” activity, and Papadopoulos was charged with (and plead Guilty to) “making false statements to the FBI” about his contacts with foreigners claiming to have “
UPDATE #39b – 11/1/17: The indictment against Manafort singles out a number of suspicious purchases by Manafort
Notable transactions in Manafort Indictment. Direct money transfers (between 2008-2013) from his account in the
Russian-owned Bank of Cyprus to the accounts of:
“Yiakora Ventures Limited” for “Home Improvement”: $1,195,814
“Yiakora Ventures Limited” & “Global Highway Ltd” for “Antique Rugs”: $934,350
“Yiakora Ventures Limited”, “Global Highway Ltd”, “Leviathon Advisors Ltd”, “Lucicle Consultants Limited” & “Global Endeavor Inc” for:
“Men’s Clothing”: $849,215
“Landscaping”: $655,500Total listed in indictment (all paid for by direct wire transfer from the
“Bank of Cypress” to the same holding companies):“Home Improvement”: $5,434,793
“Home Automation, Lighting & Home Entertainment”: $1,319,281
“Antique Rugs”: $934,350
“(Purchases related to Antique Rug vendor”): $100,000
“Men’s Clothing”: $849,215
“Landscaping”: $655,500
“Antique’s Dealer”: $623,910
“Clothing (Beverly Hills)”: $520,440
“Investment Co”: $500,000
“Florida Contractor”: $432,487
“Landscaper (Hamptons)”: $164,740
“Payments related to 3 Range Rovers”: $163,705
“Contractor in Virginia”: $125,650
“Home Audio/Video Installation”: $112,825
“Purchase of Mercedes Benz”: $62,750
“Purchase of Range Rover”: $47,000
“Property Management Co in South Carolina”: $46,000
“Florida Art Gallery”: $31,900
“Housekeeping in NY”: $20,000Total: $12,144,546
On their own, these purchases appear benign… exactly how money laundering works. But nearly all of these purchases were
And if that isn’t suspicious enough, as mentioned earlier, Wilbur Ross… Trump’s Secretary of Commerce… was the
The fact all of these transactions took place years before Manafort joined the Trump campaign (as Trump pointed out) is irrelevant (other than wondering why a Russian lobbyist and apparent money launderer for the Russian government with NO experience running a political campaign would be put in charge of running the national campaign of the GOP presidential nominee of whom he had never met.) It’s enough dirt to threaten him with
UPDATE #40 – 11/3/17: New York Times reports that Carter Page, Trump’s Foreign Policy Adviser, according to emails released by the House Intelligence Committee, notified the Trump campaign of his trip to Moscow in
UPDATE #41 – 11/7/17: 13.4 Million (financial) records leaked from 19 off-shore tax havens, dubbed “The Paradise Papers” revealed that
UPDATE #42 – 11/13/17: The Washington Post published a list of 30 Trump campaign staffers known to have been in contact with Russian officials. I’m proud to say nearly all of them are present in our own list which is FAR more extensive than the WaPo listing. Among those they included that I missed:
o J.D. Gordon, Trump’s national-security policy representative for the Republican National Convention, is the one who urged Trump to walk back the
o Sam Clovis, who most recently withdrew his name as Trump’s nominee for “Chief Scientist” at the
UPDATE #43 – 11/28/17: In “Update #8” above, the Washington Post reported that Erik Prince of “Blackwater” fame (and brother of
UPDATE #44 – 12/1/17: Michael Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact(s) with Russian officials while part of the Trump transition team. According to ABC News, the same day President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia
UPDATE #45 – 12/05/17: The New York Times revealed evidence that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was secretly co-writing (anonymously) an Op/Ed defending his work as a lobbyist for the Russian government in Ukraine. This would be an explicit violation of the
UPDATE #46 – 12/18/17: NBC News reports that in mid-2016, after the Primaries had concluded and each Party’s nominee has been decided,
UPDATE #47 – 1/10/18: Last January, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen told Yahoo News that he had “no Russian/Kremlin connections”, but Miami reporter
UPDATE #48 – 1/17/18: Glenn Simpson, the owner of “Fusion GPS” (the company that was hired by one of Trump’s GOP Primary rivals… unnamed, but which candidate had the deepest pockets and hated Trump enough to fund an investigation into Trump’s connections to the Russian criminal underworld, and would then hand off that investigation to the Clinton Campaign they later openly supported?
UPDATE #49 – 1/18/18: The “House Intelligence Committee” released the transcript of their own interview of Glenn Simpson last November, where he testified on suspicious Russian
UPDATE #50 – 1/19/18: We finally have some info on “Alexander Torshin“, listed above as one of the Russian businessmen linked to Trump. Did a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funnel money to the Trump campaign by way of the National Rifle Association? According to an investigation by “McClatchy DC”: Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, donated perhaps tens of millions of dollars to the NRA (the exact amount is unknown, but an amount believed to be between $20Million and $55Million), which then turned around and spent that money in support of Donald Trump. Total NRA spending on Trump’s behalf may be as high as $70 Million.
UPDATE #51 – 2/27/18: After 15 months and STILL unable to qualify for “Top Secret” security clearance, Kushner finally has his temporary security clearance bestowed upon him by Trump yanked by
UPDATE #52 – 3/5/18: Going back to THE VERY FIRST member of the Trump Campaign mentioned in this index, Rex Tillerson, the “New Yorker” magazine reporter Jane Mayer has learned that Russia nixed Trump’s consideration of Mitt Romney to be
UPDATE #53 – 3/6/18: George Nader, adviser to the United Arab Emirates’ Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan whom met with Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev in that mysterious January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles (
UPDATE #54 – 3/15/18: Not new information, just an update. Trump’s connection to (later-sanctioned) Russian-owned Sberbank (
What IS new is that SP Mueller has just subpoenaed The Trump Organization for any documents related to the “Trump Tower Moscow” project.
UPDATE #55 – 6/29/18: An ABC News report reveals that the Mueller investigation is looking into the unusual number of
Akhmetshin & Veselnitskaya at inaugural ball
Alexey & Polina Repik at inaugural ball
Repik takes selfie at Trump speech
Repik with Putin (Kremlin publicity photo)
Boris Titov with Putin (Kremlin publicity photo)
UPDATE #56 – 9/04/18: A bit of an indirect link, Patten was an unregistered lobbyist on behalf a Russian-linked Ukrainian firm and co-ran a lobbying firm with Manafort’s business partner Konstantine Kilimnik, who used Manafort to
So our list of members of the Trump campaign who were in contact with Russia is now:
- Trump
- SoS Rex Tillerson
- Campaign Manager Paul Manafort
- NatSec Advisor General Mike Flynn
- Son-in-Law Jared Kushner
- Attorney General Senator Jeff Sessions
- National Security Consultant Carter Page
- Peter W. Smith – GOP operative actively contacting Russia looking for Clinton emails.
- Trump’s $100 Million dollar sweetheart deal selling a $40 Million dollar mansion to a Russian fertilizer billionaire who never even visited it only to later have it bulldozed for
a $40 million dollar loss. - Sec of Commerce Wilbur Ross
- Breitbart CEO turned Campaign Director turned Chief Strategist Steve Bannon
- (Now former) Chief of Staff Reince Priebus trying to bully the FBI into silencing reports linking Trump to Russia
- Blackwater’s Erik Prince
- Trump’s personal lawyer Marc E. Kasowitz
- Donald Trump Jr.
- Trump Campaign computer servers linked to “Alfa Bank”.
- Trump’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian Benczkowski
- Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen
- Scott Balber, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, hired to represent Russian real estate mogul Aras Agalarov, accused of soliciting “dirt on Hillary Clinton” to Don Jr.
- Rick Gates, Deputy Campaign Manager and Paul Manafort’s “business adviser”
- George Papadopoulos, Trump campaign “foreign policy adviser.”
- J.D. Gordon – Trump’s national-security policy rep for the RNC Convention
…more?
The Rachel Maddow Show produced this list (11/29/17) of Russians who were in contact with people connected to the Trump campaign/administration (including Trump himself):
2. Sergey Gorkov (4)
3. Felix Sater (5)
4. Sergei Gordeev (6)
6. Oleg Deripaska (9)
8. Natalia Veselnitskaya (12, 13)
9. Rinat Akhmetshin (14)
10. Ike Kaveladze (15)
11. Emin Agalarov (16)
13. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich (19, 18)
15. Igor Sechin (21) (disputed by Carter Page)
16. Joseph Mifsud (22)
17. Ivan Timofeev (23)
19. Kirill Dmitriev (25)
(Note: This is NOT “every Russian connected to the Trump Administration, JUST the few linked to his Transition Team.)
I intend/expect to update this list frequently so bookmark it and return often. And if you know of any Trump/Russia contacts/associations I may have missed, I encourage you to please list them in the Comments.
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March 13, 2017
· Admin Mugsy · 14 Comments - Add
Posted in: Crime, Election, mystery, myth busting, National Security, Politics, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Scandals
Trump is getting his intel from Right-Wing conspiracy theorists (and that should worry us all.)
March 6, 2017
Right after the election, as the Returns continued to be counted and we learned Trump actually lost the Popular Vote by nearly “three million”, the
Just over a week ago,
And to put Trump’s “outrage” over this incredibly serious accusation into context, his
Now ask yourself WHY he doesn’t bother to confirm anything he reads on the Internet before repeating it, and it becomes clear that it is because he doesn’t trust his own intelligence agencies… run by his own appointees. So just how much can we trust him to trust them when they try to warn him of an impending attack or how a newly announced policy/agenda of his might result in chaos/disaster/war?
In addition, just what credibility will Trump hold on the world stage? Will our allies believe a word this conspiracy theorist says should he ask for their help
But the next thing to watch out for… and we’re already seeing signs of this… is for him to start setting policy based on these absurd conspiracy theories.
BREAKING (as of this writing): FBI Director Comey asked Justice officials to refute Trump’s unproved wiretapping claim.
Tom Friedman of The New York Times predicted yesterday: “Expect an effort to take away his football… the nuclear football” as concern grows over Trump’s mental stability.
We still see news stories regarding the Trump Administration with the “First 100 Days” chyron. The first 100 days refers to the “Honeymoon” period during which a newly inaugurated president has the support of the majority of Americans to get their agenda passed. If THIS is Trump’s “honeymoon” phase, just what will the next
The wheels are already coming off this clown car. The big concern is that when it does, he doesn’t take a hard right into the crowd and kill us all.
| Writers Wanted | Got something to say? Mugsy’s Rap Sheet is always looking for article submissions to focus on the stories we may miss each week. To volunteer your own Op/Ed for inclusion here, send us an email with an example of your writing skills & choice of topic, and maybe we’ll put you online! |
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March 6, 2017
· Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: myth busting, National Security, Politics, Rants, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Right-Wing Insanity, Scandals, Seems Obvious to Me
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