Ockham’s Razor
There is more than enough evidence that Trump and his chief-of-staff are both racists. Denial does no one any good. The Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the White House. If the government shuts down it is on the Republicans. Next year the Democrats may have some responsibility, but not this year.
Trump has some major problems in his immigration stances. Ali Velshi gives Trump a lesson in what ‘Chain Migration’ means by showing how Trump is the result of chain migration. Trump’s mother and two out of three of his wives were immigrants, so the problem for Trump is non-white immigrants, not immigrants. Which is why it doesn’t bother him that Russian ‘Birth Tourists’ become yet another Trump revenue stream.
British politicians can be counted on for a nice turn of phrase: ‘Donald Trump Is An Asteroid Of Awfulness,’ Says UK Labour Party.
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Yep! I saw that “Asteroid Of Awfulness” and haven’t stopped chuckling! Awesome. 😀
Seth Abramson has posted a (necessarily) lengthy commentary on the House *interrogation* (seriously, an appropriate word in this case) of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS) and included the transcript! Apologies, but anyone interested will have to check his Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/954106105734496257
Even though I knew at least some of this, it’s still stunning! :O
Some highlights:
“11/ This is key: Fusion’s major leads were developed when it was being paid by conservatives; Perkins Coie provided money for them to follow those leads further than they already had. That includes Steele’s work—which was built off Felix Sater leads paid for by Free Beacon money.”
“14/ Simpson says some of what Steele did was contacting his own well-established MI6-grade sources in Moscow, but *also* that he subcontracted with other operatives who he trusted to go to Russia and investigate (Steele could not go himself because he was a known ex-MI6 agent).”
“15/ Simpson on the credibility of the Steele Dossier’s “names and places and people and whether they matched up with information we could get elsewhere”: “all of that” checked out, he said.”
“16/ Simpson says *no* part of the Steele Dossier was found by Fusion to be “not credible,” though there were some elements they could not immediately confirm because of the nature of the information.”
“21/ Holy cow! Simpson: “We had a [Russian] gangster [nick-]named Taiwanchik living in Trump Tower running a high-stakes gambling ring out of Trump Tower—while he himself was a fugitive for having rigged the skating competition at the Salt Lake Olympics and other sporting events.”
Simpson: “And when Mr. Trump went to the Miss Universe pageant [in Moscow] in 2013, ‘Taiwanchik’ was there in the VIP section with Mr. Trump and other Kremlin biggies. That raised questions with us.””
As you probably know, in the Soviet system the GULag [Main Directorate for Camps] was under the KGB. The camps [lagers, borrowed from German] were filled by two types of prisoners: criminals & politicals. The criminals got the good indoor jobs while the politicals got the hard labor jobs outside. The KGB used the criminals as informants and for break-ins that the KGB didn’t want to be linked to as they involved perhaps Party members that the security services didn’t trust. Organized crime in the Soviet Union was organized by the KGB.
I have looked at Simpson’s testimony before the Senate [released by Senator Feinstein of California] and the testimony before the House committee that the committee just released. The bottom line is Trump was laundering money for the Russian mafia, a wholly subsidiary of Putin’s government, because his multiple bankruptcies precluded Trump getting money from the normal financial channels. Trump Inc was bought and paid for by Putin. That is what Trump is panicking over in the Mueller investigation – Mueller is gathering evidence that will prove his financial crimes, as well as his true net worth.
Simpson saw it and so did Steele.
I dealt with Russian Diplomat’s that were very concerned about that. They believed the KGB was in fact controlled by the criminals. They saw Putin coming. They were right. Several have since died or vanished.
On a *lighter?* note:
Rogue WH Snr Advisor @RogueSNRadvisor
Trump “can’t be stopped” from tweeting. Has “10-15” backup phones hidden around West Wing. Lawyers are “at their wits end.”
Well, Dotard’s priorities are obvious, as they always have been. *shrug*
Within the “Troika” of the Party, the Military, and the Security Services the individual segments were constantly pushing for more power in the Soviet system. The KGB and GRU did not share information. The US probably knew more about the Soviet military than the KGB. Having the KGB take over the Presidential palace in the Kremlin puts two-thirds of the power in its hands.
The Russian mafia provided ‘plausible deniability’ for the KGB, but everyone knew that organized crime and the KGB were part of the same faction. The Militia [criminal police] complained about the KGB all the time but it did them no good.
Trump has caused the the US government to shut down. That is how his first year on the job has ended.