Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY:

https://twitter.com/cbenjaminrucker/status/843962317360500736

Meantime in the overall 'well well' category.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/03/20/russian-billionaire-family-trump-ties-ongoing/#5e2b873469b3

In an exclusive interview with FORBES, Emin Agalarov—a Russian pop singer, real estate mogul and son of one of the country’s richest people—described an ongoing relationship with the Trump family, including post-election contact with the president himself.

Among Agalarov’s most striking claims: that he and his billionaire developer father, Aras, had plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia that would now likely be under construction had Trump not run for office; that he has maintained contact with the Trump family since the election, and has exchanged messages with Donald Trump Jr. as recently as January; and that President Trump himself sent a handwritten note to the Agalarovs in November after they congratulated him on his victory.

“Now that he ran and was elected, he does not forget his friends,” Agalarov says.

...

On Monday morning, following this article's initial publication, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization replied to an earlier request for comment. "The Trump Organization does not, and has never had, any properties in Russia, and the press’ fascination with this narrative is both misleading and fabricated," she said.

FORBES' own investigation corroborates the claim that the Trumps never closed a deal in Russia. Nonetheless, Agalarov’s remarks seem to contrast the president’s repeated insistence that he holds no ties there, and come at a time of increased scrutiny for his administration on the subject.

...

Agalarov knows that maintaining that good favor will require continued contact with Trump's inner circle. To that end, he says he exchanged messages with Donald Jr. around the time of the inauguration, but was told no deals could be pursued until the company’s leadership structure had further settled into place. Donald Trump Sr.’s new role and the ever-growing firestorm surrounding his ties to Russia are unlikely to help matters either.

But Agalarov is almost certainly used to additional political scrutiny. His ex-wife, with whom he split in 2015, is the daughter of Azerbaijan’s president. As it happens, Trump once had a project there, too, though his company cancelled the transaction in December 2016 after development stalled. Agalarov says he played no role in arranging that deal four years prior, when Trump signed on.

No matter the current hiatus, should the Trumps ultimately seek to resume their dealings with the Agalarov clan, they will find a partner eager to collaborate. “Anything Trump related I would be interested to pursue,” Agalarov says. “I think today the Trump brand is stronger all over the world. And him being the president; I mean, it’s a big brand now.”

the biggest brand

Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.

Funny how little Drudge Report gets mentioned in all of this. He certainly was central to the key Brietbart / HeatSt / ZeroHedge / etcetc articles that spun the campaign. Bill Clinton's black son, emails, and so on.

And those "articles" weren't the key thing - they were created to float those stories, not primary sources.

Nakh and I once made up a person like that -- congenial lawyer from north carolina who found ilx via the john fahey thread -- but decided not to create a sock out of him.
― Treeship, Monday, March 20, 2017 7:23 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sounds like a parody of somebody i've heard of, did you mean to do that

Dom Passantino was the last trve conservative here imho.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, March 21, 2017 12:20 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he was many things but a conservative wasn't even remotely one of them

otm

https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/843993865841459200

Reuters reporting exclusively: Rex Tillerson is going to skip the NATO meeting on April 5 and 6 and will visit Russia in late April.

lol

Perfect timing!

Good timing, Rex.

I want to say there are a couple of people so libertarian they sometimes come off conservative? I think the gun threads bring out some pretty diverse/extreme views on all sides. Speaking of diversity, I think there's an impressive variety of liberal views here, which is interesting (to me). Cynicism courses through us all, though.

I'd love to hear a good, coherent conservative defense here. I have a good friend who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative, which seems to be a relative political minority. He votes Dem, but I have a few really lefty pals he's riled up in recent years.

Good timing, Ned.

But you can't be "socially liberal," as in support gay marriage and abortion rights, and be "fiscally conservative." Access to abortion is a question of economics. So is gay marriage.

How many congressional republicans are on board with the Trump admin's pro-Russia stance? It's mind boggling to me that they are just cool with it.

...OK...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/20/us-forbids-devices-larger-cell-phones-flights-13-countries?CMP=edit_2221

xpost I don't know, don't want to put words in his mouth, but for what it's worth he's a banker and European (Croatia) and is constantly warning that the stuff that happened (is happening?) in Spain and Greece could easily happen here, and is imminent in places like England and France, if not here. Which, I don't know, maybe it is, on paper at least. He's kind of a get your houses in order before you do all the good stuff you want to do sort of guy.

But you can't be "socially liberal," as in support gay marriage and abortion rights, and be "fiscally conservative."

sure you can. they're both sliding scales.

xpost Re: bigger than cell phone devices: Huh.

If you're a woman who needs an abortion because she can't afford to keep the fetus, it's no longer a "social issue." And gay men and women marry for tax breaks too.

...and, as jic points out, they're also broad groupings of convenience. plenty of room for disagreement w/in the ranks.

which is why I won't let them get away with the convenience and neither should you

I want to say there are a couple of people so libertarian they sometimes come off conservative?

I mostly identify as anarchist so yeah I get into this spot sometimes.

"anarchist" means a lot of things, mostly I have affinity for the Schiz-Flux/Situationist/Living Theater schools, old Anarchy magazine, Crimethinc to a degree and also e.g. the old school Mother Earth anthology writings of Voltairine de Cleyre & Emma G, I'm definitely not a liberal and as Josh notes the gun control threads highlight some of the differences there.

Morbs mentioned elsewhere about how lotsa leftier/anarcho folks no longer post here (hoos, table, 69 maybe, etc.) and although I recall that comment being part of a bad faith attack I still think about it and can see why that seems to have happened to a degree, this board can be really centrist-liberal a lot of the time imo. it's not like some terrible thing but sometimes I notice it.

that being said I get a lot out of this thread although I wish some folks would keep the color-commentary posting count down a bit.

Funny how little Drudge Report gets mentioned in all of this

well, he IS gay, the psychotic little closeted fuck, and probably not as useful as Roy Cohn

bad faith is the only kind in politics.

Anyone read the NYT Mag feature story on 'how the Democrats became the Party of No'? Chuck Schumer as a Dickensian comic "reluctant firebrand".

I skimmed it and really disliked the large-font scrawls they used for those quotes :)

Dems are being like 30% as obstructionist as they need to be, unsurprisingly

this is fun https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/us/trump-obama-wiretap-comey.html

"tapps"

Hmmm. Not sure who's worse at math, Ryan or the Freedom Caucus, so hard to say what this bill's chances actually are at the moment.

But it is still unclear whether the changes are enough to win over the 216 Republicans needed to pass the measure in a high-profile vote planned for Thursday. GOP leadership insiders and White House officials firmly believe the changes will corral the necessary votes. But several rock-ribbed conservatives emerged from a closed-door session Monday night vowing to vote against the bill, and bragging that they have the votes to block it.

"House leadership does not have the votes to pass this very liberal bill unless they have a bunch of Democrats on board!" declared Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) while exiting the meeting. He called it a "the largest Republican welfare bill in the history of the Republican Party."

Interesting one-two via Haberman -- wonder who it is:

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/844007561154068480

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/844008312366665728

One Trump adviser dismisses the internal White House mess and says the only fight that matters "is the one inside Trump's head." That fight, the adviser said, is between Trump's instinct to never back down, which is now bumping into his fear of failure.

All of which pretty much follows from what we've seen/heard over the months and years, so it's more that it's being voiced here, now, by said source.

Cool, can't wait to become collateral damage in the battle between Turnip's warring mental factions.

Morbs mentioned elsewhere about how lotsa leftier/anarcho folks no longer post here (hoos, table, 69 maybe, etc.)

Yeah idk what happened exactly but for myself I think I'm really busy doing the work and I don't have any energy to get in fights on the internet.

Cool, can't wait to become collateral damage in the battle between Turnip's warring mental factions.

Most likely Trump himself.

we little people are always the ones that get it

The rough and tough cream puff speaks:

https://twitter.com/BresPolitico/status/844184182012203008

Trump to House Rs on AHCA vote: "I honestly think many of you will lose your seats in 2018 if you don't get this done."

there's a decent chance many of them will lose their seats in 2018 if it does get done tho, right?

That very minor little problem, yes.

tbf no-one knew how complciated healthcare could be

It's the rare lose-lose-win-win!

Meanwhile: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-documents-say-trump-aide-hid-payments-from-pro-moscow-ukraine-party/2017/03/21/92ec85f2-0e11-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html

KIEV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian lawmaker on Tuesday released new financial documents allegedly showing that a former campaign chairman to President Trump laundered payments from the party of a disgraced ex-leader of Ukraine using offshore accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

The new documents may revive questions about the ties between the Trump aide, Paul Manafort, and the party of the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who has been in hiding in Russia since being overthrown by pro-Western protesters in 2014. He is wanted in Ukraine on corruption charges.

as clean as a hound's tooth crunching on dog shit.

That doesn't sound very clean at all oh wait

I'm sure Dmitri Firtash had absolutely nothing to do with any of this..

for a group that lucked into total power they sure did put themselves in a no-win situation fast

The MP accusing Manafort of hiding payments is the same one who was (almost certainly falsely) accused of blackmailing him. The details around the mystery ledger are extremely fishy but i'd assume that, even if the specifics are fictional, the substance (that Manafort took off-the-books payments worth millions from the Party Of The Regions) is true. The "pro-Moscow" vs "pro-western" dichotomy applied to Ukrainian politics of the era remains moronically reductive though.

I'm proud to announce today the passing of our landmark health care bill that finally repeals Obamacare.

What does it DO? Why, it removes that pesky individual mandate.

Coverage? Well....it's not bad! Deductibles are a bit higher. And those of you that are sick will probably need to join high risk pools for best coverage. You liked those, right?

Cost? Well...it's a ....wee bit higher. But now you have the freedom not to enroll!

Credits? Well, now we base them on age! One suggestion we have is to be poor when you're older instead of younger as you won't get much of a benefit.

so yeah, this is a landmark, definitive health care bill, people will remember this day for sure!

for a group that lucked into total power they sure did put themselves in a no-win situation fast

― frogbs, 21. marts 2017 15:44 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thing is, they really didn't luck into anything. They lied and bullshitted, manipulated, let Russia hack, told Obama they wouldn't join a bi-partisan condemnation of the hacks, used the hacks. So it's really not a surprise that it has returned to bite them in the ass.

One facet of conservativism is scapegoating and fudging facts in the service of drumming up aggrievement. It works when you're the underdog, punching up and saying that everything is stupid and you could do things better, but it doesn't work so well once you're given the power to realize your unworkable agenda. In that respect, gaining total control of the federal government is the worst thing that could've happened to the GOP.

No matter what happens down the Russian avenue and how much can be nailed down, the unintended/unforeseeable consequences that face us are truly limitless.

Nuke America: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/american-spring-break-revelers-chant-trumps-build-the-wall-while-partying-in-cancun-report/

for a group that lucked into total power they sure did put themselves in a no-win situation fast

These things aren't totally unrelated. It's hard to stay popular when you're in power, because then you're the one saying no to people, you're the one presiding over peoples' lives still being pretty shitty! That's one of the fundamental structural features that makes our system work. Of course that feature is only in play because people obey norms. The fear is always that Trump goes full Chavez -- low taxes for everyone, free stuff for everyone, the economy falls apart eventually but what does Trump care? There are statues of him everywhere and people say "remember how great it was when the benevolent Trump ruled us?" I still think it could go that way but Trump will ahve break the will of the congressional GOP and business interests who actually do have something to lose in this scenario.