Trump & Putin

[Auctoritas 2,836]

Ok...actually read this. This isn't about Republican vs Democrat, or conservative vs liberal, or anything else...this looks really bad, presented this way, particularly #7 below.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin's increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there's quite a bit more to the story. 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.

Let me start by saying I'm no Russia hawk. I have long been skeptical of US efforts to extend security guarantees to countries within what the Russians consider their 'near abroad' or extend such guarantees and police Russian interactions with new states which for centuries were part of either the Russian Empire or the USSR. This isn't a matter of indifference to these countries. It is based on my belief in seriously thinking through the potential costs of such policies. In the case of the Baltics, those countries are now part of NATO. Security commitments have been made which absolutely must be kept. But there are many other areas where such commitments have not been made. My point in raising this is that I do not come to this question or these policies as someone looking for confrontation or cold relations with Russia.

Let's start with the basic facts. There is a lot of Russian money flowing into Trump's coffers and he is conspicuously solicitous of Russian foreign policy priorities.

I'll list off some facts.

1. All the other discussions of Trump's finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million. This is in just one year while his liquid assets have also decreased. Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks.

2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here's a good overview from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration ...

Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.

 

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

 

3. One example of this is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump's largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan. Most attention about the project has focused on the presence of a twice imprisoned Russian immigrant with extensive ties to the Russian criminal underworld. But that's not the most salient part of the story. As the Times put it,

"Mr. Lauria brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm preferred by wealthy Russians “in favor with” President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a lawsuit against Bayrock by one of its former executives. The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a “strategic partner,” along with Alexander Mashkevich, a billionaire once charged in a corruption case involving fees paid by a Belgian company seeking business in Kazakhstan; that case was settled with no admission of guilt."

 

Another suit alleged the project "occasionally received unexplained infusions of cash from accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia."

Sounds completely legit.

Read both articles: After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments. As I noted above, Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks with the exception of Deutschebank, which is of course a foreign bank with a major US presence. He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin.

Trump's tax returns would likely clarify the depth of his connections to and dependence on Russian capital aligned with Putin. And in case you're keeping score at home: no, that's not reassuring.

4. Then there's Paul Manafort, Trump's nominal 'campaign chair' who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. Manafort is running Trump's campaign.

5. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page, a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom. If you're not familiar with Gazprom, imagine if most or all of the US energy industry were rolled up into a single company and it were personally controlled by the US President who used it as a source of revenue and patronage. That is Gazprom's role in the Russian political and economic system. It is no exaggeration to say that you cannot be involved with Gazprom at the very high level which Page has been without being wholly in alignment with Putin's policies. Those ties also allow Putin to put Page out of business at any time.

6. Over the course of the last year, Putin has aligned all Russian state controlled media behind Trump. As Frank Foer explains here, this fits a pattern with how Putin has sought to prop up rightist/nationalist politicians across Europe, often with direct or covert infusions of money. In some cases this is because they support Russia-backed policies; in others it is simply because they sow discord in Western aligned states. Of course, Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, not only in the abstract but often for the authoritarian policies and patterns of government which have most soured his reputation around the world.

7. Here's where it gets more interesting. This is one of a handful of developments that tipped me from seeing all this as just a part of Trump's larger shadiness to something more specific and ominous about the relationship between Putin and Trump. As TPM's Tierney Sneed explained in this article, one of the most enduring dynamics of GOP conventions (there's a comparable dynamic on the Dem side) is more mainstream nominees battling conservative activists over the party platform, with activists trying to check all the hardline ideological boxes and the nominees trying to soften most or all of those edges. This is one thing that made the Trump convention very different. The Trump Camp was totally indifferent to the platform. So party activists were able to write one of the most conservative platforms in history. Not with Trump's backing but because he simply didn't care. With one big exception: Trump's team mobilized the nominee's traditional mix of cajoling and strong-arming on one point: changing the party platform on assistance to Ukraine against Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine. For what it's worth (and it's not worth much) I am quite skeptical of most Republicans call for aggressively arming Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. But the single-mindedness of this focus on this one issue - in the context of total indifference to everything else in the platform - speaks volumes.

This does not mean Trump is controlled by or in the pay of Russia or Putin. It can just as easily be explained by having many of his top advisors having spent years working in Putin's orbit and being aligned with his thinking and agenda. But it is certainly no coincidence. Again, in the context of near total indifference to the platform and willingness to let party activists write it in any way they want, his team zeroed in on one fairly obscure plank to exert maximum force and it just happens to be the one most important to Putin in terms of US policy.

Add to this that his most conspicuous foreign policy statements track not only with Putin's positions but those in which Putin is most intensely interested. Aside from Ukraine, Trump's suggestion that the US and thus NATO might not come to the defense of NATO member states in the Baltics in the case of a Russian invasion is a case in point.

There are many other things people are alleging about hacking and all manner of other mysteries. But those points are highly speculative, some verging on conspiratorial in their thinking. I ignore them here because I've wanted to focus on unimpeachable, undisputed and publicly known facts. These alone paint a stark and highly troubling picture.

To put this all into perspective, if Vladimir Putin were simply the CEO of a major American corporation and there was this much money flowing in Trump's direction, combined with this much solicitousness of Putin's policy agenda, it would set off alarm bells galore. That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. And yet Putin is not the CEO of an American corporation. He's the autocrat who rules a foreign state, with an increasingly hostile posture towards the United States and a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons. The stakes involved in finding out 'what's going on' as Trump might put it are quite a bit higher.

There is something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence for a financial relationship between Trump and Putin or a non-tacit alliance between the two men. 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.

[telling tiger 156]

Extremely interesting and Dumpf would see this from me on advertising 24/7/365 broadcast to the inside of his eyelids...........

Where are all those whiners about HRC and her changing positons for donations?

Well, here is your POS Dumpf, doing MUCH worse.

[AURaptor 1,137]

Maybe we can do away w/ the " progressive " tax system we have and go to a more fair and conservative based flat tax, like Russia has ? 

[homersapien 11,812]

Frankly, I don't find this all that surprising.

The money that Russia's kleptocracy generates undoubtedly puts drug money to shame.  They are looking for ways to spend it. It's pretty obvious that Trump could get ridiculously good "terms" - if you want to call it that - from Putin after a couple of bankruptcies.  Do you really think 'The Donald' is going to watch his empire decline with such easy money available?

It will be interesting to watch this play out.  Democrats could - and will - ride it all the way.  Makes Hillary's E-mail issue pretty much moot in comparison.

Let's see that tax return Donald! 

 

 

[telling tiger 156]

Campaign manager for Dumpf, likes him some Russian flavored politicians, too...........

http://www.politifact.com/global-news/article/2016/may/02/paul-manafort-donald-trumps-top-adviser-and-his-ti/

[homersapien 11,812]

Putin’s Buddy Trump Is About To Get National Security Briefings. Intel Officers Are Worried.

“The notion that the Trump team could request intel briefings on Russia when they clearly have close ties is horrifying,” said one former intelligence official.

 

Trump has called for following Moscow’s lead on various global issues andquestioned whether it’s necessary for the U.S. to always defend other members of NATO, the alliance created during the Cold War to protect American partners from an expansionist Soviet Union. His rhetoric about foreign policy neatly matches the message coming out of Moscow: that America has little need for its long-time partners in Europe ― particularly in NATO ― or elsewhere, and that the U.S. should have less influence internationally. Trump has extensive business and financial ties to Russia. The Washington Post has described his relationship with Putin as a “bromance.” Troll accounts tied to the Russian government have promoted Trump on Twitter, the New Yorker’s Adrian Chen noted last year. And this week, mysterious hackers released internal Democratic National Committee emails ― a move that security experts and reporters are increasingly convinced was an attempt by the Russian government to swing the presidential election to Trump.

Trump’s deep relationship with Russia has the intelligence community worried.

“Never have we had a candidate so tied to a foreign power, especially one that is so hostile to the U.S. in many ways, and one that is actively messing with our election,” said one former senior intelligence official. “Many [in the intelligence community] don’t care about U.S. politics and pride themselves on being nonpartisan, but the ties to Russia are deeply disturbing.”

read more at: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/putin-trump-national-security-briefings_us_57963cd6e4b02d5d5ed2476b

 

[TexasTiger 13,556]

Putin's partner.

[telling tiger 156]

Pass the vodka....

[AUUSN 823]

Have we forgotten?

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/cbbn22/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-third-world-health-care---knoxville--tennessee-edition

 

 

[Grumps 3,706]

Wow! This is almost as big as Melania Trump using 3 sentences from Michelle Obama's speech!

[AUFAN78 4,060]

14 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Wow! This is almost as big as Melania Trump using 3 sentences from Michelle Obama's speech!

Get's it. 

[homersapien 11,812]

Why Donald Trump Loves Vladimir Putin

Because he loves himself a lot—really, he does.

Last week—before Donald Trump schlonged Hillary Clinton and charitably pledged not to kill journalists—there was a curious episode involving the GOP front-runner and Russian President Vladimir Putin that remains, even after the passage of several news cycles, worthy of a few dollops of reflection, since it may provide a true key to understanding Trump.

It all began when the Russian strongman hailed Trump as "a very bright and talented man." He also pointed out the obvious: that Trump was the leader in the GOP presidential race. Trump replied with a bear hug. On MSNBC's Morning Joe,he proudly commented, "When people call you brilliant, it's always good, especially when the person heads up Russia." Though host Joe Scarborough pressed Trump, noting that several journalists critical of the Putin regime have been slain, the tycoon turned politician stuck with his admiration for Putin and replied, "He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country."

Days later, Trump declined to distance himself from his Putin-friendly remarks. He insisted it would be good for the United States if he became president because Putin respected him. Trump also defended Putin, saying, "If he has killed reporters, I think that's terrible. But this isn't like somebody that's stood with a gun and he's, you know, taken the blame or he's admitted that he's killed. He's always denied it." (According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, "Russia remains the worst country in Europe and Central Asia region at prosecuting journalists' killers…[In] nearly 90 percent of murders of journalists in Russia, no one is convicted.")

Many Republicans and other human beings were astonished by Trump's embrace of Putin. Mitt Romney was so enraged he put out a tweet. And I'm told that GOP insiders once again started telling each other that this Trump misstep—a candidate playing footsie with the repressive ruler of Russia!—would be the one to topple Trump's tower-like standing in the polls. Well, perhaps. But, then again, Trump tends to not schlong himself.

Still, the episode left many members of the politerati puzzled: What could have prompted Trump to become a kissing Cossack of Putin? Though time has marched on, this question still warrants an answer. Or a theory. And I have one.

Trump is a narcissist—at least, several experts in narcissism have raised (quite strongly) this possibility. As Jeffrey Kluger, author of The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed—in Your Worldnoted in Time, "To call Donald Trump a narcissist is, of course, to state the clinically obvious. There is the egotism of narcissism, the grandiosity of narcissism, the social obtuseness of narcissism." And writing in the New York Times, Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory University, and Ashley Watts, a graduate student there, observed:

The political rise of Donald J. Trump has drawn attention to one personality trait in particular: narcissism. Although narcissism does not lend itself to a precise definition, most psychologists agree that it comprises self-centeredness, boastfulness, feelings of entitlement and a need for admiration.

They declared that it would be "inappropriate of us to offer a formal assessment of his level of narcissism." But according to the Mayo Clinic, these are the symptomsof narcissistic personality disorder:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

Yes, mental health specialists should not diagnose anyone from afar. But it would be hard to read this list and point to a public figure who exhibits more of these traits than Trump. In Psychology Today, journalist Randi Kreger, who has written on personality disorders, applies this list to Trump's statements and actions and finds—guess what?—compelling evidence for each symptom. Some experts have been so sure of Trump's narcissism that they have been willing to brand him with the N-word merely on the basis of his public life. As Vanity Fair reported recently:

For mental-health professionals, Donald Trump is at once easily diagnosed but slightly confounding. "Remarkably narcissistic," said developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education. "Textbook narcissistic personality disorder," echoed clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis. "He's so classic that I'm archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there's no better example of his characteristics," said clinical psychologist George Simon, who conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior. "Otherwise, I would have had to hire actors and write vignettes. He's like a dream come true."

Let's assume that Trump, if he's not a full-blown case of narcissistic personality disorder, is narcissistic-ish. And then let's ask: How does a narcissist judge other people in his super-self-centered world? Certainly, it's all about how these other people relate to the narcissist. And for a narcissist, what's most significant is how others think of him. So in the case of Putin, what counts for Trump is how Putin regards Trump. If Putin says Trump is brilliant, then Putin must be okay. Other parts of Putin's record—say, invading a country or running a corrupt, repressive regime—don't matter as much. After all, those things don't affect Trump directly.

Trump seems to inhabit a world that he views as one big green room, full of bold-faced names, with Trump as king of the hill. At campaign speeches, he often refers to famous people—the famous people in his world—by their first names, inviting his followers and supporters into this exclusive, otherwise-gated community. (His campaign is like one long episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.) And Putin is just another inhabitant with the sense to recognize Trump's undeniable greatness. During a Republican presidential debate in early November, Trump boasted of forging a bond with Putin during a taping of 60 Minutes. He made it sound as if he and Putin had buddied it up in the green room at CBS: "I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates, and we did very well that night." Trump the salesman was selling his connection with über-man Putin as a qualification for the presidency.

Well, it did not take fact-checkers long to report that Trump's statement was a total lie. As Factchecking.org put it, "The two did appear on the same '60 Minutes' episode, which aired on Sept. 27. But journalist Charlie Rose traveled to Moscow for the two-hour interview with Putin, and Trump was interviewed by Scott Pelley in Trump's Fifth Avenue penthouse in Manhattan." In this instance, Trump's big green room in the sky was a fantasy. Yet somehow, in Trump's mind, his proximity to Putin via videotape elevated him to the level of a superpower leader. Clearly, Trump had a need to identify with Putin.

Trump's full-on fib about getting to know Putin "very well" while both were being promoted by 60 Minutes did nothing to slow down Trump's campaign. And it seems that the next time Trump had a chance to show everyone he was on Putin's level—with Putin now identifying with Trump and endorsing his manifest brilliance—he seized it. 

The Putin affair illustrates that Trump's main currency is not money or power; it's Trump-love. Putin showed it, and, for Trump, that defined the man. Putin, as far as Trump sees it, has passed the most critical test: He validated Trump's magnificence. For a narcissist, what in the world could be more important?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/donald-trump-putin-narcissism

[homersapien 11,812]

Donald Trump: ‘I Hope’ Russia Hacked Clinton’s Email Servers

The Republican nominee broke a cardinal rule of American politics: Never root against the United States.

 

Donald Trump on Wednesday said he hopes Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails have fallen into the hands of Russian hackers.

“If they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do,” Trump said at a press conference at his resort in Doral, Florida. 

The Republican presidential nominee was referring to the widely held suspicion that Russia is responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee’s servers, resulting in the leak of tens of thousands of emails just days before the party’s nominating convention in Philadelphia.

Trump said that he hoped the hackers had also accessed Clinton’s private email servers. “They probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted.”

Trump then addressed the rogue nation directly, saying “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

By actively hoping that American servers were hacked by another nation, Trump broke an unwritten but cardinal rule of American public office: You don’t root against the United States, even when your political opponent is in power.

Regardless of party or platform, American public officials are expected to champion U.S. interests and defend U.S. national security. Trump seemed to do the opposite Wednesday. 

Within moments of Trump’s press conference, his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), released a statement distancing himself from the nominee’s words. “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences,” Pence said......

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-russia-hack_us_5798d1c8e4b02d5d5ed3b51a

 

[channonc 466]

Interesting statement by Pence.  Does he realize what he signed up for? 

It's scary that Trump is seemingly just poking a barely sleeping lion.  Does he really want Russia involved in our politics? I'm headed to Russia in a few days, all of this is sure making me nervous.

[telling tiger 156]

Trump is beyond a joke. Intergalactic embarrassment. 

[aujeff11 6,243]

The "I'm not a Trump fan but he is the best we got" fans are still going to vote for him, whether he encourages national espionage or not.

[Grumps 3,706]

If Russia has Hillary's e-mails then the FBI may finally get to see them all! It is really sad that Russia's deceit is the only way for transparency when it comes to dealing with Clintons.

[aujeff11 6,243]

3 minutes ago, Grumps said:

If Russia has Hillary's e-mails then the FBI may finally get to see them all! It is really sad that Russia's deceit is the only way for transparency when it comes to dealing with Clintons.

I can see you are hoping and praying that those emails are found by the Russians even though that clearly puts the security of our country in jeopardy.

[Grumps 3,706]

2 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

I can see you are hoping and praying that those emails are found by the Russians even though that clearly puts the security of our country in jeopardy.

Do you really think that I am "hoping and praying that those emails are found by the Russians"? Did I even imply that?

[homersapien 11,812]

4 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Do you really think that I am "hoping and praying that those emails are found by the Russians"? Did I even imply that?

Of course you did:

"If Russia has Hillary's e-mails then the FBI may finally get to see them all! "

[aujeff11 6,243]

Just now, Grumps said:

Do you really think that I am "hoping and praying that those emails are found by the Russians"? Did I even imply that?

Yep. All you cared to do was to provide the silver linings of the Russians hacking Hillary's emails. 

SMH

 

[aujeff11 6,243]

3 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Of course you did:

"If Russia has Hillary's e-mails then the FBI may finally get to see them all! "

Glad I'm not the only one that thought that.

[SaturdayGT 719]

If russia has them, it would be good to know regardless. Hopefully they do not have any top secret info, or anything like it at all. 

[telling tiger 156]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/after-trump-called-on-russia-to-find-clintons-emails-a-surge-in-lookups-for-treason-20160727

[AU-HANDLEY-TIGER 205]

Don't we all wished Clinton followed protocol and this conversation wouldn't even be occurring ? ?