Russian Connection 4: Do Not Congratulate

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

"How does the UK know it was the Russians? It could have been China, it could have been a 400 pound guy from New Jersey."

Or a 400 pound orange guy in the WH.

[47of74]

Or a 400 pound orange guy in the WH.

Yeah nine months after surgery I weighed what fuck face told everyone he weighed. Speaking from experience he ain’t no 239. Anyone who claims otherwise is full of it.

[SPHASH]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

"How does the UK know it was the Russians? It could have been China, it could have been a 400 pound guy from New Jersey."

Chris Christie is a Russian troll?  Not surprised.

[fraurosena]

6 hours ago, 47of74 said:

...
How long until fuck face says the people who poisoned her are fine people and she had it coming?

With the way he reveres Putin, the question is: How long until presiduncial adversaries start dying under suspicious circumstances?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

Holy schmoley, that's a book-length article, but it puts EVERYTHING together, because there's so much to put together. I'm going to print it out for further contemplation.  It touches on EVERYTHING, and clarifies all aspects of this long strange journey.  Will start following Jonathan Chait on twitter. 

Also wish I could get a large scale copy of that astounding chart showing all the players and all of their connections.  There needs to be another chart with all the players and all the Brexit connections.  

[WiseGirl]

Holy shit. Excellent article @AmazonGrace I will need to reread it as there is so, so much in there. Wow! Like Howl said,  another must follow on Twitter. 

[Howl]

I'd also recommended taking a few minutes to read the first 20 or so comments on that article.  Perfect illustration of the political divide in our country, but also some thoughtful and very meaty commentary.  Like this

Spoiler

I recommend for Jonathan Chait to reconsider whether what he says about Manafort is accurate. Above, Chait writes that Manafort "lacks any long-standing personal ties to the president or his family,"

In truth, though, Manafort has continuously maintained his Trump Tower residence from 2006 to the present. For many of those years, Deripaska/Putin's yearly contract for Manafort to promote Putin in the West was renewed. Although Manafort was dismissed from the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016 after some of his immoral behavior in Ukraine became public, we know that Manafort was communicating with and advising the campaign right through the election.

Manafort and Trump have a long, long history. In 1980, Manafort opened a lobbying firm (Manafort, Black and Stone): one of his first clients was Donald Trump.

Writing in Slate, Kate Brennan gives a detailed outline of known Manafort/Trump interactions, which, I believe, gives substantive grounds to doubt that Manafort lacks long-standing personal ties to Trump.  

and this (same commenter)

Spoiler

For further consideration, this quote about Trump from former FBI Assistant Direct Frank Figliuzzi was transcribed from a recent TV interview of him conducted by Nicole Wallace:
“Of all the things that he said last night that were disturbing and that we could focus on – that phrase, that comment about Putin being KGB, but he’s one of us, he’s OK, we’re all people – that’s what I choose to focus on because that’s the most disturbing. An attempt to normalize a stone cold killer like Putin who orders the murders and poisonings of those he disagrees with is extremely troubling. And this president is about to sit across from a table from this man alone and discuss national security matters. So what troubles me the most here is we’re watching our president become unhinged, imploding in full view of the world and now negotiating with killers, negotiating with heads of state who he perhaps should not be sitting down and negotiating with and that leads me to the conclusion that perhaps the greatest threat facing our national security today is an insider threat, it’s the president himself who doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand what he’s up against.”

But part of the problem is that, as a country, we've never covered this ground before.  The tendency is to interpret behavior through the normal lens of normal motivations and actions; however, there is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, normal about the Trump presidency.   So thank you Jonathan Chait for digging deeply and putting together at all the pieces to provide a different focus.  It's a verbal version of a pointillist painting with each dot a Russian connection or alternately, a portrait of Trump created using only tiny photos of all the people who are somehow involved with Russia.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

Quote

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page has been subpoenaed for a closed-door interview this week with the House Judiciary and Oversight committees

There are some especially noxious Republicans on that committee and way too many Texans: Darrell Issa, Lamar Smith, Steve King, Jim Jordan (R-#They'reAllLying!), Louie Gohmert (R-Duh).  Trey Gowdy is on the committee; maybe he'll lend a tiny bit of sanity on the "R" side and keep the incorrigibles on a tight leash. 

I really hope the sex for those two was THAT GOOD, considering the damage done to their families, the FBI, the Mueller investigation, their careers, and potentially, the country.  But then, who could ever imagine that a secret romance will turn into a Cat. 5 shit storm? 

A bit of a detour on Lamar Smith, who represents a district in San Antonio. Lamar Smith, current head of the House Science panel, is retiring this year, and champagne corks popped when the scientific community heard that news. This is what ScienceMag.org had to say about Lamar Smith upcoming retirement from US House of Representatives:  

Spoiler

Smith’s current 5-year tenure as chairman of the science committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, they say, has been a relentless attack on the integrity of the scientific enterprise, with a special focus on undermining peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF), blocking the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate industrial excesses, and curbing research on climate change....

....And some science lobbyists say the committee has become a cesspool of bitter partisanship; they fondly recall a time when panel Republicans and Democrats joined hands on important legislation designed to strengthen federal support for research and innovation that was backed by the academic community.

Full text here: Lamar Smith, the departing head of the House science panel, will leave a controversial and complicated legacy

[GreyhoundFan]

Color me unsurprised: "Giuliani works for foreign clients while serving as Trump’s attorney"

Spoiler

Rudolph W. Giuliani continues to work on behalf of foreign clients both personally and through his namesake security firm while serving as President Trump’s personal attorney — an arrangement experts say raises conflict of interest concerns and could run afoul of federal ethics laws.

Giuliani said in recent interviews with The Washington Post that he is working with clients in Brazil and Colombia, among other countries, as well as delivering paid speeches for a controversial Iranian dissident group. He has never registered with the Justice Department on behalf of his overseas clients, asserting it is not necessary because he does not directly lobby the U.S. government and is not charging Trump for his services.

His decision to continue representing foreign entities also departs from standard practice for presidential attorneys, who in the past have generally sought to sever any ties that could create conflicts with their client in the White House.

“I’ve never lobbied him on anything,” Giuliani said, referring to Trump. “I don’t represent foreign government in front of the U.S. government. I’ve never registered to lobby.”

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, a legal ethics professor at University of California-Irvine, said it is generally unwise for the president’s lawyer to have foreign business clients because of the high likelihood they will have competing interests.

“I think Rudy believes because he is doing the job pro bono the rules do not apply to him, but they do,” Menkel-Meadow said.

Since Trump hired him in April, Giuliani has repeatedly crossed the lines traditionally followed by presidential lawyers. He has regularly opined on Iran, North Korea and other policy issues outside his purview, while also publicly revealing details about his discussions with his client and with the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which is investigating whether the Trump campaign assisted Russia in interfering with the 2016 election.

Among the clients represented by Giuliani’s consulting firm is the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, whose mayor was a leading figure in Party of Regions, the Russia-friendly political party at the center of the federal conspiracy prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. His firm worked for the mayor in 2018 and is expected to work for him again later this year, Giuliani said in an interview.

Kharkiv has contracted with a subsidiary of Giuliani’s consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help set up a new office of emergency management there, according to Giuliani and others involved in arranging the deal. Giuliani traveled to Ukraine last November to meet with Kharkiv officials and then hosted a delegation from the city in New York in March, about three weeks before he was hired as Trump’s attorney, according to officials and Ukrainian news reports.  

Another current Giuliani client is the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian resistance group operating in exile that was listed as a terrorist group by the State Department as recently as 2012. Giuliani said he has regularly received payments from MEK over the past 10 years; he declined to disclose his fees. 

Giuliani acknowledges giving a paid speech to the group in May in Washington, and he delivered another speech at an MEK gathering outside Paris on Saturday advocating regime change in Tehran. He said before the conference he planned to spend “three or four days” in Paris helping the group.

His consulting firm has also been hired by cities in Brazil and Colombia looking for new policing strategies and for ways to reduce crime, Giuliani said. He recently returned from a trip to Brazil to meet with clients before leaving for the MEK conference.

Lobbying experts said some of Giuliani’s work for overseas clients is likely to require registration under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), which mandates disclosure to the Justice Department of attempts “to influence U.S. public opinion, policy, and laws” on behalf of foreign entities or individuals. Although violations are punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, the Justice Department has prosecuted only a handful of cases in recent decades.

Joshua Ian Rosenstein, a partner at the Sandler Reiff law firm, which specializes in FARA and other lobbying registration questions, pointed to Giuliani’s MEK speech in Washington in May as an example of political activity requiring registration.

“Political activity is a broad term,” Rosenstein said. “It includes any actions — including speeches, PR work and media outreach — that are intended to or anticipated to influence the U.S. government or the U.S. public with regard to the formulation, adoption, or modification of the policies of the U.S., or with regard to the political or public interests, policies, or relations of a foreign political party.”

Two White House spokespeople declined to comment on Giuliani or whether his work for foreign entities posed any conflict of interests for the president.

But Giuliani’s talkative and freewheeling style has irritated many White House officials, who say his frequent pronouncements are unhelpful and have often put the president in difficult positions. Giuliani often gives Trump personnel advice, White House aides said, and he said in a recent Post interview it would be good for Trump to have a more “political” chief of staff than John F. Kelly ahead of the 2018 midterms.

“He seems to be blending the services of a lawyer with the services of policy in the White House,” said William Jeffress Jr., a lawyer who represented Richard B. Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby. “If you begin to stray to seek to influence the president or the White House that could be a problem. If you are seeking to influence the government in representing a foreign power, then you have a duty to register.”

Giuliani has also lobbied the president to promote his son, Andrew, a low-level White House aide who has clashed with Kelly and others in the West Wing. The elder Giuliani said that before becoming Trump’s attorney, he asked about a promotion he believed Trump had promised his son, and the president responded in the affirmative. He said he has not talked to the president about the issue since becoming his lawyer.

But three White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Giuliani continued to lobby Trump for his son’s promotion after he became the president’s lawyer.

Andrew Giuliani, who works in the White House Public Liaison Office, often arranges sports team visits to the White House and has been a regular Trump golfing partner for years. He suggested in an interview with The Post that some at the White House have bristled at his efforts to root out leaks.

“I’ve been lucky enough to know the president for close to 30 years and known him well for 20 years,” Andrew Giuliani said. “I find him to be similar to an uncle, and I’m lucky enough to be very close to his family.”

Trump remains pleased with Giuliani, lunching with him in New Jersey this weekend ahead of his Supreme Court nomination, praising his attacks on the special counsel and telling others that his situation has improved because of the former mayor, White House officials said.

After leaving the New York mayor's office following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Rudolph W. Giuliani built a lucrative career soliciting well-heeled clients for Giuliani Partners. He also worked with two law firms while accepting speaking fees on his own. He has since severed ties with the law firms but retains his security firm while representing Trump.

Giuliani said he is not as involved at the consulting company as he was before taking over as the president’s lawyer. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.

Giuliani said he never brings up his other clients with the president. He also said he has turned down some potential clients who have approached him recently, including a Russian business; he declined to identify the company.

“I really don’t think he does,” Giuliani said, when asked if the president knew who his clients were. “He knows I do a lot of security work all over the world.”

White House officials say they cannot be sure if Giuliani’s claim about not discussing clients with the president is true or not. The two men often talk late at night and early in the morning, and the conversations are frequently wide-ranging.

Giuliani also defended his work with Kharkiv Mayor Gennady “Gepa” Kernes, who was close to deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych before he fled to Russia and who has since sought to align himself with the new government in Kiev. Kernes uses a wheelchair after nearly being killed by an unidentified gunman in 2014. His allies have blamed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin for the attack, an allegation the Russian government has denied.

“I wasn’t concerned about them because he just got his legs blown off by Putin,” Giuliani said, referring to alleged links between Moscow and Kernes. “Maybe those ties were before.”

 Representatives for TriGlobal Strategic Ventures, a New York consulting firm involved in arranging the meetings between Kharkiv officials and Giuliani, did not respond to requests for comment.

On Giuliani’s MEK relationship, a spokesman for the group, Shahin Gobadi, did not respond to a question about payments to Giuliani for speeches but said his appearances were not the same as working for the group.

“Mayor Giuliani’s advocacy for the human rights and democracy in Iran has been consistent with his long-held views,” Gobadi wrote in an email to The Post. “He has never worked for the MEK in any shape or form. He has never done any lobbying on behalf of the MEK.”

He added later, “Of course, he has relation with the MEK and has publicly said to have worked with them in line with his views but he has not worked for them.”

MEK was formally listed as a terrorist group by the State Department until the Obama administration dropped the designation in 2012 amid a sustained lobbying campaign. Members of the group have been implicated in the deaths of Americans and thousands of Iranians, primarily in the 1980s when the neo-Marxist group was allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the war between Baghdad and Tehran.

MEK supporters, including many U.S. conservatives, say the group has changed since then and is a valuable bulwark against the theocratic Iranian regime.

Daniel Benjamin, a State Department counterterrorism coordinator during the Obama administration, criticized Giuliani’s advocacy for the MEK and suggested he and others may have violated the law. Benjamin said the Treasury Department was so concerned about an MEK lobbying and public relations program featuring Giuliani and other notables in 2012 that it opened a preliminary inquiry into the issue.

“Plenty of us working in counterterrorism found just the appearance of support for a listed organization that had American blood on its hands to be outrageous,” said Benjamin, now a scholar at Dartmouth College. “An unfortunate consequence of the decision to delist was that this investigation got shelved.”

MEK officials deny any inappropriate lobbying and said the Treasury review cited no violations by the group. They also say allegations of terrorism and of responsibility for the death of Americans are unfounded and distributed as part of a propaganda campaign on behalf of the Iranian government.

 

[Howl]

Of course there's a Russia/Ukraine connection with Rudy, because OF COURSE THERE IS!!!!!! Just one more piece of the jigsaw puzzle. 

Just a reminder, Rudy.  Trump chats a lot with friends on an unsecured cell phone, which is probably the cyber equivalent of the old-time party line. 

I know this is an obscure reference for many (most?) of you, but I remember my grandmother's party line phone in rural southeast Texas in the 1950s - early 1960s.  There would be five or six families on one line, and each household had it's own designated number of rings.  Let's say the number of rings for your family was three rings;  so, ring ring ring, pause, ring ring ring, the call was for someone in your household.  HOWEVER, all households on the party line heard the rings, and if they were interested in your business (and why wouldn't they be), they could just pick up and surreptitiously listen in on the conversation. Don't forget the operator, who could also listen in.  Good times, good times. 

[AmazonGrace]

This was inevitable.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Pavel is being moved: "Judge orders Paul Manafort moved to Alexandria jail"

Spoiler

A federal judge in Alexandria has ordered Paul Manafort moved to that city’s jail to prepare for his upcoming trial on bank and tax fraud charges.

Manafort, who was President Trump’s campaign chairman for several months, last week asked for his July 25 trial in Alexandria federal court to be delayed until this fall, saying his incarceration in Virginia’s Northern Neck has made it too difficult to prepare. He also wants the trial moved to Roanoke.

Judge T.S. Ellis gave the special counsel prosecuting Manafort until Friday to respond to those motions. In the meantime, he said Manafort would be moved from the Northern Neck to the jail in Alexandria “to ensure that the defendant has access to his counsel and can adequately prepare his defense.”

The Northern Neck Regional Jail is about 100 miles from Washington, and Manafort lawyers wrote in a filing last week that the two-hour trip and restrictions on electronic or telephone communications “has made meetings . . . to prepare his defense far more infrequent and enormously time-consuming.”

Defense attorneys voiced those concerns in a motion last week asking for the case to be pushed back to this fall, after Manafort goes on trial on related charges in D.C. federal court. The judge in that case, Amy Berman Jackson, ordered Manafort to be jailed last month after he was accused of attempting to persuade potential witnesses to lie on the stand.

Manafort has also asked for the Virginia trial to be moved to Roanoke, saying Northern Virginians were too overwhelmed with news stories about the case and too hostile toward the Trump administration to give him a fair trial.

Between the two cases, Manafort’s lawyers say the government has produced about 2 million pages of documents, tens of thousands of which came in the past few months.

While the charges against Manafort center on his private work for a Russia-backed Ukrainian political party, they were brought by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors say he got one favorable loan only because the bank chairman wanted a job in the Trump administration.

He's not going to like the Alexandria Hilton any better than the one in the Northern Neck.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Putin is about to con Trump in Helsinki. Here’s how."

Spoiler

David J. Kramer is a senior fellow in the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy at Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, a former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the George W. Bush administration and author of “Back to Containment: Dealing With Putin’s Regime.”

It may be harder to predict what the American president — vs. his Russian counterpart — will say at the July 16 summit in Helsinki. Indeed, President Trump’s unpredictability contrasts with a rather easy-to-read Vladi­mir Putin. And that should make many people nervous.

With his KGB training, Putin will be well prepared for this meeting. Trump and his advisers should anticipate three main approaches.

First, having observed what has and has not worked for other leaders, Putin undoubtedly will offer Trump praise and flattery. Putin is sure to remark how Trump overcame the odds in a presidential election few thought he could win — most likely including, by the way, Putin himself.

Putin will emphasize Trump’s ability to be his own man, unbeholden to the “swamp creatures” of Washington. He will admire Trump’s candor and readiness to defy norms, especially by challenging allies who are “taking advantage” of the United States.

Putin will credit Trump for meeting with him despite the Mueller investigation into potential Trump campaign ties with Russia. Their very meeting, Putin will argue, shows there is nothing untoward between the two leaders. Putin will certainly share Trump’s disdain for the media and compare stories of “fake news” — of which the Mueller investigation and allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the two leaders will surely agree, are perfect examples. So unfair, Putin will declare. And Putin will note admiringly Trump’s ability to stay connected with the constituency that elected him.

Second, Putin will blame all of the problems in U.S.-Russia relations on Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. Not lost on those in Moscow is Trump’s readiness to seek to do the opposite of what Obama did. As Trump himself has said, Obama let Putin take Crimea. Putin will say that it was Obama who imposed sanctions on Russia and accused Moscow of interfering in the election in an attempt to discredit Trump’s legitimacy.

Putin will also argue that it was Obama’s failure in Syria that forced Russia to take action there to secure Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s position against Islamic extremists. We have the same goals in Syria, Putin will state. If you, America, want out, then we, Russia, are willing to step in. Pay no attention, Putin will say, to talk about Russian-Iranian collaboration in Syria.

Obama and the Europeans were behind the revolution in Ukraine, Putin will claim, leading to a coup forcing out that country’s previous president, Viktor Yanukovych. That left Putin little alternative but to intervene to protect Russian citizens in Crimea. After all, Putin will say, they speak Russian in Crimea and really belong to Russia anyway — a point Trump himself reportedly made at the Group of Seven meeting last month.

To seek Trump’s support for a Russian sphere of influence, Putin will argue that Russia has much greater interests in the region than the United States does. Imagine all the problems that could have been avoided had Obama minded his own business and stayed out of Ukraine, Putin will claim. Don’t forget, Putin will add, that reports of alleged payments to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort from the Yanukovych circle — part of the current “witch hunt” against Trump — originated in Ukraine.

Third, Putin will appeal to Trump’s apparent desire to take a wrecking ball to the international order of the past seven decades, including institutions such as NATO, the European Union, the World Trade Organization and the G-7. Putin will claim that he and Trump have had enough of these institutions, which seek to block Russia and exploit U.S. generosity. Let’s start over, Putin will urge, to build the greatest partnership between Russia and the United States ever.

Only Trump, Putin will claim, is bold enough to toss aside these obsolete institutions and build a new foundation in their place. Such a foundation should be laid by the two great powers, Russia and the United States, led by their two great current leaders. Their meeting in Helsinki opens the way for the two of them to make history. Smaller countries, the Russian leader will posit, only get in the way of a brighter future together. Indeed, he and Trump could make Russian-American relations great again!

And, if none of that works, well, Putin has some beachfront property he can offer Trump.

The scariest part about all of this is that it just may work. Trump’s eagerness to meet with Putin, his call in March congratulating Putin on his “reelection” and his willingness to believe Putin’s denial of interference in the 2016 U.S. election do not bode well. We can only hope that Trump’s unpredictability proves this dire forecast wrong.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

On 7/7/2018 at 2:57 PM, fraurosena said:

Да, ты должен!

... or if your Cyrillic isn't up to scratch: Da, ty dolzhen!

... or if you've still not started your mandatory Russian lessons: Yes, you should!

 

Well, damn. What will the “english only” crowd do with that development? Kind of throws the whole “We only speak ‘Murican’ here” thing out the window. Besides, I’ve seen their protest signs. They can’t spell for shit in English. Cyrillic will have them all falling over in shock, drooling and muttering to themselves. 

34 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Putin is about to con Trump in Helsinki. Here’s how."

  Reveal hidden contents

David J. Kramer is a senior fellow in the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy at Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, a former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the George W. Bush administration and author of “Back to Containment: Dealing With Putin’s Regime.”

It may be harder to predict what the American president — vs. his Russian counterpart — will say at the July 16 summit in Helsinki. Indeed, President Trump’s unpredictability contrasts with a rather easy-to-read Vladi­mir Putin. And that should make many people nervous.

With his KGB training, Putin will be well prepared for this meeting. Trump and his advisers should anticipate three main approaches.

First, having observed what has and has not worked for other leaders, Putin undoubtedly will offer Trump praise and flattery. Putin is sure to remark how Trump overcame the odds in a presidential election few thought he could win — most likely including, by the way, Putin himself.

Putin will emphasize Trump’s ability to be his own man, unbeholden to the “swamp creatures” of Washington. He will admire Trump’s candor and readiness to defy norms, especially by challenging allies who are “taking advantage” of the United States.

Putin will credit Trump for meeting with him despite the Mueller investigation into potential Trump campaign ties with Russia. Their very meeting, Putin will argue, shows there is nothing untoward between the two leaders. Putin will certainly share Trump’s disdain for the media and compare stories of “fake news” — of which the Mueller investigation and allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the two leaders will surely agree, are perfect examples. So unfair, Putin will declare. And Putin will note admiringly Trump’s ability to stay connected with the constituency that elected him.

Second, Putin will blame all of the problems in U.S.-Russia relations on Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. Not lost on those in Moscow is Trump’s readiness to seek to do the opposite of what Obama did. As Trump himself has said, Obama let Putin take Crimea. Putin will say that it was Obama who imposed sanctions on Russia and accused Moscow of interfering in the election in an attempt to discredit Trump’s legitimacy.

Putin will also argue that it was Obama’s failure in Syria that forced Russia to take action there to secure Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s position against Islamic extremists. We have the same goals in Syria, Putin will state. If you, America, want out, then we, Russia, are willing to step in. Pay no attention, Putin will say, to talk about Russian-Iranian collaboration in Syria.

Obama and the Europeans were behind the revolution in Ukraine, Putin will claim, leading to a coup forcing out that country’s previous president, Viktor Yanukovych. That left Putin little alternative but to intervene to protect Russian citizens in Crimea. After all, Putin will say, they speak Russian in Crimea and really belong to Russia anyway — a point Trump himself reportedly made at the Group of Seven meeting last month.

To seek Trump’s support for a Russian sphere of influence, Putin will argue that Russia has much greater interests in the region than the United States does. Imagine all the problems that could have been avoided had Obama minded his own business and stayed out of Ukraine, Putin will claim. Don’t forget, Putin will add, that reports of alleged payments to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort from the Yanukovych circle — part of the current “witch hunt” against Trump — originated in Ukraine.

Third, Putin will appeal to Trump’s apparent desire to take a wrecking ball to the international order of the past seven decades, including institutions such as NATO, the European Union, the World Trade Organization and the G-7. Putin will claim that he and Trump have had enough of these institutions, which seek to block Russia and exploit U.S. generosity. Let’s start over, Putin will urge, to build the greatest partnership between Russia and the United States ever.

Only Trump, Putin will claim, is bold enough to toss aside these obsolete institutions and build a new foundation in their place. Such a foundation should be laid by the two great powers, Russia and the United States, led by their two great current leaders. Their meeting in Helsinki opens the way for the two of them to make history. Smaller countries, the Russian leader will posit, only get in the way of a brighter future together. Indeed, he and Trump could make Russian-American relations great again!

And, if none of that works, well, Putin has some beachfront property he can offer Trump.

The scariest part about all of this is that it just may work. Trump’s eagerness to meet with Putin, his call in March congratulating Putin on his “reelection” and his willingness to believe Putin’s denial of interference in the 2016 U.S. election do not bode well. We can only hope that Trump’s unpredictability proves this dire forecast wrong.

 

Oh cool, another one. KJU tenderized him, and now Putin’s going in to finish the job. 

[AmazonGrace]

Seems like a perjury trap is wanted

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

@Howl, this wasn't in Texas, but some of my relatives had a party line until the early 80s. They were pretty frugal people who hated change, so I'm sure they kept it long after private lines became available in their area. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

Good news, people have been tragic about Manafort being in solitary but it's not that bad,  he can tamper witnesses from jail.

[AmazonGrace]