Trump & Putin. Yes, It's Really a Thing Did you catch the part where Trump's campaign insisted that the Republican Platform soften language on Russia's invasion of Ukraine - the only change they insisted on, despite the fact that the platform contains scads of other stuff that goes against what Trump has been campaigning on? Read all about it here. "At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men."
Holy crap. Great article. I hope this gets traction, because it deserves it. Closing statement: "Even if you draw no adverse conclusions, Trump's financial empire is heavily leveraged and has a deep reliance on capital infusions from oligarchs and other sources of wealth aligned with Putin. That's simply not something that can be waved off or ignored."
This is the stuff that makes me crazy regarding his followers. They simply DO. NOT. CARE! They do not. Not one skeleton in Trump's closet could ever damage his image with these racist bigots. Trump is speaking their language of HATE and WHITE PRIVILEGE. And that's all that matters to them. Putin be damned! Gotta get another white pecker back in the White House!
In the interest of fairness, I'm seeing several reporters and bloggists pushing back at the facts in the original. Example (referring to the platform thing - apparently the Trump campaign made a number of changes in addition to the Ukraine stuff):
One of the most interesting things about this story is the source: Trump's son-in-law's newspaper. This Thanksgiving at the Trumps' could be interesting. Wikileaks Dismantling of DNC Is Clear Attack by Putin on Clinton The really fun part? How much you wanna bet that the Russkies hacked Hillary's email server too? See you in October. We are SO screwed.
We've known for a while that Trump's followers don't care. But by themselves they're not enough to elect him. What matters with a story like this is if undecideds care.
>>We are SO screwed.<< Can we Brexit? I've heard something about Brexiting, maybe we can all Brexit. Anyone want to carpool to the Brexiting?
If you can't see the blatant disregard for anyone but white guys coming out of the Trump supporters, including conservative nutbags like Phyllis Schlafly, then tough toenails. This is the main source of their hatred. "Make America Great Again" is shorthand for "Bring back white power!" And not just any white power. Straight White Christian Male Power. They hate gays. They hate non-whites. They hate non-Christians. They hate women. Period! Roll your eyes all you want. But the Convention last week showed them for what they truly are: a total throwback to the Southern slavers who hated anyone that wasn't like them.
It's not their bigotry that concerns me, it's yours. They're a hopeless bunch of anger-fueled neanderthals, and frankly I don't care what they think. You should be better than them.
East-West SpyWar Heats Up With Arrest of Russian Hacker in Prague The Observer must be an interesting place to journalist. (Ivanka's husband runs it.)
Trump and Putin. Yes, it is really a thing. Moscow had contacts with Trump team during campaign, Russian diplomat says
Here is a good article released just yesterday that seems to sum up the Russian connection in a fair and balanced way. There is still a lot to be very disturbed about. Forget conspiracy theories. This is why Trump’s Russian connection is actually a problem. One part that particularly disturbs me is excerpted here: "He even, weirdly, invented a story about the two of them becoming best buds in the green room before a 60 Minutes episode. "I got to know him [Putin] very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates, we did well that night," Trump said on CBS’s Face the Nation back in November 2015. This meeting never happened: The two men were interviewed by different journalists on different continents. But it must comfort Putin to know that Trump’s ideas align with Russia’s interest, and that Trump himself is deeply impressed by Putin as a leader." It bothers me because he is always making stuff up, lying through his teeth. He either doesn't have a firm grasp on reality, or he has such disdain for everyone else that he thinks he can deceive us at will (or both). His supporters don't seem to care that he is a pathological liar - I mean, he lies about EVERYTHING. Yet, they choose to believe a lot of what he says because they want it to be true. It's utter insanity all the way around.
I'm beginning to realize that when my father told me "you must not tell lies!" he was really screwing up my future. I'm pretty pissed about the "don't bully people!" rhetoric, too. Won't make the same mistakes with my kid, boy howdy!
