The Russia Monitor: Russpublican Arsonists In The Trumputin Match Factory

 

 

By Dan Peak
The Commoner Call (5/21/18)

Dear Fellow Readers,

Today we’ll use a few voices to summarize the guilt and corruption of Trump, his campaign and his sycophant administration. The left counts trees while Russpublicans torch the forest. It’s time to switch gears.

Trump TV lawyer Rudy Giuliani has gone on the offensive by offering the case that the Trump-Russia debate is now about whether Trump can be indicted. That is a LONG way from “no Russia”. Could it be Giuliani is burning a new fire break in anticipation of even worse news?

From a conservative voice we have this:

Bill Kristol‏Verified account @BillKristol

FollowingFollowing @BillKristol

More. Doesn’t Rudy trumpeting the (apparent) fact a sitting president can’t be indicted tend to undercut the Trump team’s excuse for his not testifying? It’s not a perjury trap if you can’t be indicted for perjury. 5:00 PM – 16 May 2018

Rudy Giuliani offers a tortured view of law and facts that makes Bill Clinton’s twisting justifications of the word ‘is’ simple by comparison. And well it should, one was a lie about sex while, as the Washington Post points out, Giuliani has to explain away treason: Rudy Giuliani Just Watered Down Trump’s Russia Collusion Denial — Again.

So we have Giuliani’s admission on behalf of Trump that the campaign colluded with Russia, but no laws were broken if the “information they never got” wasn’t used?

“We don’t know whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government, legally speaking. But we do know that those close to President Trump seem to be quite concerned about just how precisely you define the word “collusion.”

“Rudolph W. Giuliani hit the airwaves of Fox News on Wednesday night to again raise the bar for what might constitute collusion. On the same day that 2,500 pages of testimony about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were released, Giuliani declared that collusion would require using information that was provided by the Russians.”

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Donnie Junior back in the scandal barrel 

While so much time is spent splitting frog hairs over the legality of collusion, we have new news of Trump collusion: Trump Jr. And Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help To Win Election.

So in a nutshell, we learn that U.S. foreign policy was again (don’t forget former Trump national security advisor he-of-guilty plea Michael Flynn) determined by Trump campaign collusion:

“Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor.

“The meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months — past the election and well into President Trump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters.

“Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.”

The company, which employed several Israeli former intelligence officers, specialized in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media.

But, as the New York Times detailed, good news if you are Qatar and the victim of Trump’s alignment with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, you can always bribe your way out of the doghouse: Kushners Near Deal With Qatar-Linked Company For Troubled Tower.

Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner found the money he needs to bail him out with his heavily indebted New York flagship property.

“The company controlled by the family of the White House adviser Jared Kushner is close to receiving a bailout of its troubled flagship building by a company with financial ties to the government of Qatar, according to executives briefed on the deal.”

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‘Stain on our nation’s honor’

While Trump’s TV lawyers go on television to wave their arms in increasingly twisted and tortured convolutions, people like House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) invent new boogeymen, the FBI becomes the anathema of Russpubicans and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) hoovers up all $’s any way possible to keep the Trump train on the tracks – it’s just politics: What More Do You Need To Know About Trump?

How about “he did it”?

The Salon article subhead concludes: Trump did it and he’s going down for a host of crimes, and some of them have nothing to do with Russia.

Salon’s Lucian Truscott wastes no words:

“I’ve been “covering” the Trump story for over a year now, and I’m sick and tired of stacking up the details of his treachery day after day, week after week. What more do you need to know? He’s a lying, thieving, incompetent, ignorant traitor who conspired with the Russian government to steal the election of 2016 and illegally defeat a candidate who won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. His presidency is illegitimate, and his occupation of the White House is a stain on our nation’s honor and a threat to our democracy. History will cast him into the same sewer in which float the putrid remains of Benedict Arnold, Jefferson Davis and Richard Nixon. Impeachment would be too kind an end for him. He belongs behind bars, broken, bankrupt and disgraced.

“Every day the front pages of the newspapers and the headlines of the cable news shows are filled with evidence of Trump’s lies and thievery. Look at what happened this week alone.”

The ‘case’ includes the lies about Stormy Daniels, the about-face on Chinese communications company ZTE along with the Chinese support for a new Trump hotel, the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, Trump’s White House disrespectfully throwing Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the dustbin as a dying former victim of torture, news of Trump lawyer Cohen having a Trump Moscow project in-hand during the later days of the Trump campaign….

Heck, even Trump’s appointment to head the FBI testified to the risks represented by Trump’s efforts to do a favor for Chinese president Xi while “protecting Chinese jobs”. Trump’s GOP appointment to head the FBI, the same agency his Russpublicans now decry an agency of boogeymen,raise concerns about Trump dealings with China: FBI Chief ‘deeply concerned’ About Companies Like ZTE.

“Wray told lawmakers at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing that he wouldn’t comment publicly on a specific company — but “we at the FBI remain deeply concerned that any company beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values are not companies that we want to be gaining positions of power inside our telecommunications network.

““That gives them the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, that gives them the capacity to conduct undetected espionage, that gives them the capacity to exert pressure or control,” Wray added.”

There is no end, even in a single week, to Trump’s willingness to sell out the U.S. for any and all personal advantage. And yet, so much noise in support of the second coming of Reagan as the victim of so many unpatriotic boogeymen.

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Big money wheeling n’ dealing on the campaign trail

So yes, there is new news of Trump lies given new revelations about his efforts to land a Trump Moscow hotel deal during his campaign. A bit beyond, “no contact with Russians”: REVEALED: Trump Signed A Letter Of Intent To Build Trump Tower Moscow While Campaigning For President.

“A new bombshell investigation by BuzzFeed News has revealed that President Donald Trump signed a letter of intent to begin building a Trump Tower in Moscow in October 2015 — months after he formally announced his presidential campaign.

“According to the report, Trump signed an LOI for the Trump Tower Moscow project that was drafted by personal attorney Michael Cohen at the behest of longtime business associate Felix Saterwho himself has longstanding ties to the Russian mob.”

The barrage of Trumputin ‘bombshells’ come almost daily. It’s time for a new approach.

Here’s a good example from Nicole Wallace for MSNBC. Using the Cohen news, what follows is an 18 minute summary of the evidence against Trump, but more importantly a willingness to include accusations of criminality. Link to 18-Minute Video.

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Cutting to the chase

Buzz Feed make things crystal clear: It’s Not a Liberal Fantasy to Ask if Trump Committed Treason.

The article subhead brings the focus: This is a fairly simple case. Why aren’t more people comfortable seeing it?

If the constant drip of corruption isn’t enough…

“The U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russian activities in the 2016 presidential election concluded that Russia tried to influence the outcome through the dissemination and weaponization of information stolen from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The thirteen Russian operatives indicted by the Special Counsel for waging a disinformation campaign through our social media platforms and other internet media, described their activity as “information warfare against the United States of America.”  

“… Russia’s cyber attack was an act of war. They significantly disrupted and damaged our Constitutional infrastructure in an attempt to undermine the foundation of U.S. democracy. They were of sufficient scope, duration and intensity to deem them armed attacks. Clearly, they meet the international criteria of an armed attack and an act of war against the United States.”

Is Trump right – this is all about Hillary and emails and (his) FBI and spying from within his campaign and fevered claims of ”witch hunt and on and on. The poor guy.

Or is it time to ask legitimate questions about how much Trump corruption is acceptable as a basis for U.S. foreign policy, or even ‘if’ Trump’s collusion with Russia is sufficient as a case for treason?

Unless Democrats can regain some control of Congress through the midterm elections we may not only never know the answers to collusion, corruption or treason, we may be subjected to a steady flow of Russpublican efforts to root out all vestiges of those not loyal to Trump from our government.

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Could this be how it all wraps up?

To end with a positive vision of how this tawdy tale ends, who better than SNL?: Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin Leads ‘SNL’ Chorus Lamenting ‘What I Did For Trump’.
(Commoner Call cartoons and photo by Mark L. Taylor, 2018. Open course and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )