I’VE BEEN CONSTRAINED TO CREATE THIS SEPARATE PAGE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO THE RAVINGS/ACTS OF THE PSYCHOTIC TRUMP
[ So numerous are trump’s foibles/frauds/scams/cons, euphemistically speaking, I’ve begun a topical index here ]

… Great thanks should be accorded Mitt Romney for his courage in stating the factual reality that trump’s a fraud and cites merely some of trump’s great business failures/cons/scams to back up his true statement ‘a business genius he (trump) is not’ … Why courage? Because trump’s at most a typical new york/new jersey mobster, mingling/coddling/intertwined with the proverbial gangs of new york/new jersey/waterfront … he just recently threatened no less than Speaker of the House Paul Ryan … then there’s the racist rants/alignments; and as well, that ‘great wall of trump’s ‘hina , etc.‘. 4-29-16 Similarly, great thanks should be accorded Indiana Governor Pence for his courage in endorsing Ted Cruz (and VP designate Carly Fiorina) based upon a respect for a constitutionally based rule of law  (comment revoked/retracted, 7-26-16) … Why courage? Because trump’s at most a typical new york/new jersey mobster

 

7-26-16   http://albertpeia.com/trumptydumpty.gif


{ 3-9-16: There has been some discussion/advocacy among some who watch this stuff very closely that some ‘soul searching’ is in order for the less than politically viable remaining republican potential presidential nominees to be other than the divisive spoilers nutcase trump would hope them to be at this juncture, to the nation’s, their own, and the GOP’S detriment, and to mental case trump’s benefit. To be sure, I’ve remained above that fray and quite candidly can say I am for the most part, certainly at this point, predominantly and simply, from direct observation and experience an ‘abt’ (anybody but trump) kind of guy (yes, having met with trump at trump’s trump tower office on behalf of a client years ago I recall how totally disappointed I was after even then, all the ‘hoopla’/ultimately bull s**t engulfing this self-aggrandizing megalomaniac/fraud ‘endearingly’ referred to as ‘The Donald’ who was referred to by then NYC Mayor Ed Koch as a lightweight (a joke not to be taken seriously), and is similarly absolutely deplored by, among others ‘in the know’ with ‘ears  close to the ground’ recent Mayor Bloomberg who by all accounts knows something about business and knows how to count. Not surprisingly, that other mayor, whose father was an enforcer for the mob and served time in prison, giuliani, is purportedly an advisor to trump.

I would caution those remaining republican potential presidential nominees not to take umbrage; but rather, consider this strategy to be a ‘better part of valor’/’politically live to fight another day’/’hurt rather than help trump the divisive fraud’ type of thing. 3-11-16: uncle ben carson, previously referred to as pathological by trump himself (takes one to know one, huh ben) has endorsed trump saying there’re (at least) two trumps. Whoa … You mean in addition to at least a narcissistic personality disorder, trump suffers from a dissociative identity disorder/schizophrenia? … Will the real primary (technical ‘term of art’ in psychiatry relative to dissociative identity disorders) donald trump please stand up  … Careful Uncle Ben et als, trump’s running out of things/positions to promise supporters …  TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE TO BE SMART (MEANING UNIFIED CONSOLIDATION BEHIND LEADING ANTI-TRUMP CANDIDATE BY THE NUMBERS, PRE-FLORIDA PRIMARY). 5-17-16
‘Midnight in Moscow’ … (the sleeper agent) trump awakens (Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)Los Angeles Times-May 10, 2016 "When [Trump] says he wants to withdraw from NATO, the most ... He's repeatedly called NATO "obsolete" because the U.S. funds a ... described the party as "divided, [but] will unite," according to exit ... A Los Angeles attorney who leads a political party that advocates white separatism is on Donald Trump's ...

MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW … (THE SLEEPER AGENT) TRUMP AWAKENS The sleeper has awakened ... no, not Maudib of Frank Herbert's fictional 'Dune' fame; but rather, more in the genre of Fred Forsythe, John LeCarre(David Cornwall), and Robert Ludlum ... as in Moscow's sleeper agent has awakened [(for the benefit of trump's 'informed, learned, intelligent, educated and unwavering core supporters' ...hmmmm..., Moscow is the capital of Russia (and the former Soviet Union)] ... One, and only one nation benefits from the exit of america from NATO as advocated by 'the donald'  ... If you guessed Russia ... you guessed right ... maybe deal-meister/artist trump has rights to new berlin wall/iron curtain construction contracts ... WOW! ... Then there's (trump fan) denny rodman's bro, kim jun ill of No.Korea, whom trump says he'll court saying that South Korea and Japan could also get nukes ... sounds like a plan, don ... NOT! ... america's nukes will work just fine on north korea ... Yes, Russia's sleeper agent trump has awakened - 'Redrum' dawn? (that's murder spelled backwards ... ‘shining’, sea to shining sea, hmmm) ... If THEY don’t take trump the mobster down, if THEY let the ‘say anything dissembler’ get away with what he has already gotten away with, no citizen, nor leader in america or any other affected nation should even minimally follow much less sacrifice for misguided, misdirected american policy.   Nato and US defence chiefs issue security warnings over Brexit The Guardian       Potential President Trump fills world leaders with fear: 'It's gone from funny to ...The Guardian    Trump's Miss Universe Foreign Policy New York Times

 

[ So numerous are trump’s foibles/frauds/scams/cons, euphemistically speaking, I’ve begun a topical index here ]

 

 

Donald Trump’s business disaster is worse than you think

 

For a man like Trump, a casino is the perfect setting. What you may not have heard, however, is that ‘The Apprentice’ guru has seen four of his casinos go bankrupt. Read more at: https://tr.im/H3Q3z

 

Trump Tower Funded by Rich Chinese Who Invest Cash for Visas {Hoping for some Triad money? Sounds like a trump modus operandi … yet, from his bull-s**t bluster that reality is the last thing you’d expect … trump’s a total fraud! }

Bloomberg-Mar 6, 2016

The video leads viewers behind the wheel of a car into Jersey City with ... Trump Bay Street is a 50-story luxury rental apartment building being ...

Trump Tower Funded by Rich Chinese Who Wanted Visas
Fortune-Mar 7, 2016

Trump hammers China while using its immigrants' money to build ...
In-Depth-The Guardian-Mar 7, 2016

Millionaire Chinese investors are funding Trump tower in exchange ...
International-Shanghaiist-19 hours ago

Trump Luxury Building Is Funded by Chinese Investors in Exchange ...
Blog-Slate Magazine (blog)-Mar 7, 2016

Trump tower funded by rich Chinese immigrants who invest cash for ...
In-Depth-Sydney Morning Herald-Mar 7, 2016

 

[There’s been some shock and dismay over the less than objective, now pro-trump ‘drudge report’; so much so that a previous must-read had turned into an almost and what is now a no-read/no-cite for me. How? Why? I personally believe it’s that drudge has been and is infatuated with and has a crush on ‘little eva (braun)’ aka ann coulter, a rabid trump supporter. Amazingly, drudge himself is Jewish. So much for drudge’s ‘Walter Winchell fantasy’ as he becomes just another ‘waterfront bum on the road to palookaville’.]
Donald Trump is LITERALLY Hitler!Trump: Our Illegal Alien in the GOP See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel.

Bill Maher Points Out How Frighteningly Similar are Donald trump and hitler ...  huffingtonpost.com

According To Bill Maher, Donald Trump Sounds Like Hitler youtube.com

We’re going to make Germany great again, that I can tell you ... www.salon.com/2016/03/05/were_going_to_make_german

Trump Supporter Ann Coulter Slams Pandering to ‘F---ing Jews’ http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2016/02/with_pope_fight_trump_may_have.html

The conservative pundit, who actually used to be funny, dredges up a historic libel against Jews, intimating they are secretly more powerful than you’d believe.

 

Donald Trump supporter and conservative pundit extraordinaire Ann Coulter may arguably the most offensive and divisive tweet of her life during the Republican debate last night, slamming the candidates for giving too much attention to the concerns of “f---ing Jews.”

How many f---ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

Coulter couldn't stop herself in front of more than a half-million followers.

Maybe it's to suck up to the Evangelicals.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

Christie also talks @ Israel in response to the question: What will AMERICA look like after you are president?

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

All GOPs = prolife, pro-Reagan, pro-Israel. Pandering on all 3 tonight was EPIC. https://t.co/lZ0ZUtVdSf

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

I like the Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. Didn't need to hear applause lines about them all night. https://t.co/4guFehK0CM

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

It's not about Jewish people; it's about Republican panderers. https://t.co/OmOL2B9K0E

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

The whole argument echoes a historic libel against Jews that they hold secret influence.

Coulter has her own history of making inflammatory comments directed at Jews: she famously told the Jewish interviewer Donny Deutsch that Jews should convert to Christianity because “Jews need to be perfected.”

Full of hate, with an appetite to offend and shock, Coulter is just like Trump.

Coulter has fallen far in the past 10 years. She rose as a text-based corollary to Fox News and in 2005, Time magazine described her as “Ms. Right.” Now she complains she can’t even get on CNN.

Fearful of being forgotten, Coulter has reacted by becoming ever more offensive.

The tragedy is that Coulter did used to actually be quite funny. Her writing was massively provocative, but it was also often clever and witty.

In 2011, for example, she told an interviewer, “A liberal’s idea of being chivalrous is to hold the car door for you before driving you off a bridge. Also, a conservative guy will never ask to ‘role play’ with you as the sexy nurse and him as the senior citizen with a pre-existing medical condition who wants a single-payer government health plan.”

In her 2012 book, Treason, she wrote, “Democrats always assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, they’re against it.” 

For a hot minute, it seemed Coulter might one day mature into a provocateur of the P.J. O’Rourke school; love his politics or loathe them, one has to admit that O’Rourke’s word play, gags and vivid evocations of cartoon-like absurdity, e.g. “How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink.”

Coulter instead seems to be turning into Rush Limbaugh after a David Duke seminar.

 

 

 

With Pope fight, Trump may have cost the GOP something much more than just the election: Dennis Roddy  http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2016/02/with_pope_fight_trump_may_have.html

 

 

Pentagon Troops: It’s Us or Trump

Wochit News on MSN

 

 

Donald Trump, the Most Dangerous Face in the Republican Crowd

Like “Lonesome” Rhodes, the lead character in Elia Kazan’s great 1957 movie about demagogy, Trump is a case study of narcissism and megalomania run amok.

By Sasha Abramsky February 12, 2016

http://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-the-most-dangerous-face-in-the-republican-crowd

 

 

trump supporter Ted Nugent Goes Full-On Jew Hater in Facebook Rant

By Hrafnkell Haraldsson on Tue, Feb 9th, 2016

Nugent posted a photo of prominent Jewish Americans to Facebook with the caption, “So who is really behind gun control?” and put an Israeli flag next to each of their faces

 

 

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/09/ted-nugent-goes-full-on-jew-hater-rant.html

 

 

 

Donald Trump in 1992

Marcus Baram 03.07.16 2:00 PM

Even amid a particularly vicious Republican primary season, one of the most incendiary allegations about Donald Trump has not received much attention—until last week.

On NBC’s Meet the Press on February 28, rival Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speculated that Trump may be reluctant to release his tax returns due to his "business dealings with the mob, with the mafia." He added that multiple news reports have described Trump’s dealings with S&A Construction, "which was owned by ’Fat Tony’ Salerno, who is a mobster who is in jail. Maybe his taxes show those business dealings are a lot more extensive than has been reported." When host Chuck Todd interrupted Cruz and called such claims "speculative," Cruz asserted that there have been multiple news reports describing such allegations about Trump.

Indeed, Trump and his businesses have been linked to the mob in multiple news reports and biographies—and such allegations have been probed by government investigators. In 1992, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement looked into multiple allegations about Trump’s links to organized crime and other unsavory activities that may have disqualified him from holding a casino license in the state. In the end, the agency and the state’s Casino Control Commission chose not to take any action against Trump, who retained his license. The agency’s internal investigative report has now been obtained by Fast Company….

 

The Backstory

American history is littered with prominent politicians, including former presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, with links to organized crime figures. There were widespread allegations that Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana was a donor to JFK's campaign and helped him win the 1960 West Virginia primary. Nixon was friendly with James Crosby, a businessman whose company was associated with mobsters, and Charles "Bebe" Rebozo, who ran a bank that reportedly handled mob money. And Reagan was friendly with legendary mob-connected Hollywood lawyer Sidney Korshak. None of these associations have ever been proven to be unlawful.

Trump was first linked to organized crime in the 1980s, when a $7.8 million subcontract for Trump Plaza was awarded to S&A Concrete, which was partially owned by Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino crime family who was later gunned down outside midtown Manhattan’s Sparks Steak House in 1985. In the 1986 federal indictment of Salerno, government prosecutors noted the company’s work on Trump Plaza.

Trump himself discussed the company’s notorious backers when he acknowledged that S&A Concrete was "supposedly associated with the mob" in a December 2015 interview with the Wall Street Journal. He emphasized that many other developers hired the company and he praised the quality of their work: "Virtually every building that was built was built with these companies. These guys were excellent contractors. They were phenomenal. They could do three floors a week in concrete. Nobody else in the world could do three floors a week. I mean they were unbelievable. Trump Tower, other buildings."

Did Trump Do Enough To Avoid Supporting Organized Crime?

In the wake of Cruz’s comments, the fact-checking site Politifact examined the issue and concluded: "It’s important to note that Trump hasn’t been charged with any illegal activity, and it’s reasonable to argue that he was unaware or even a victim in some cases. But Cruz has a point that the mogul has been linked to the mob for decades."

Almost a dozen former FBI agents and DGE investigators interviewed by Fast Company did not know about Trump ever meeting personally with members of organized crime. And they stressed that most developers in New York in the 1970s and 1980s couldn’t avoid dealing with contractors linked to organized crime since the mob had a stranglehold on the industry.

"Maybe not personally, but through his companies he had to have contacts with the mob," says one former member of the bureau’s Organized Crime Task Force. "He couldn’t have built his buildings without them. The question is whether he could have done more to avoid them."

According to the task force's 1990 report on the influence of organized crime: "[T]he construction industry in New York City has learned to live comfortably with pervasive corruption and racketeering. Perhaps those with strong moral qualms were long ago driven from the industry; it would have been difficult for them to have survived. 'One has to go along to get along.' "

 

In Atlantic City, Trump reportedly had other links to organized crime figures. The developer’s initial partners on his first deal in the gambling mecca on the Jersey shore were Kenneth Shapiro, who was identified by state and federal prosecutors as an investment banker to former Philadelphia mob boss Nicky Scarfo, and Danny Sullivan, a former Teamsters Union official, who is described in an FBI file as having mob acquaintances. Both men controlled a company that leased parcels of land to Trump for the 39-story hotel-casino, as I reported for the Huffington Post in 2011.

Trump teamed up with the duo in 1980 soon after arriving in Atlantic City, according to numerous news reports and his real estate broker on the deal, Paul Longo. The developer grabbed a prime piece of property and partnered with Shapiro and Sullivan, but the state’s gambling regulators were concerned enough about Shapiro's and Sullivan’s mob links that they required Trump to end the partnership and buy out their shares, according to several Trump biographies. Both Sullivan and Shapiro died in the early 1990s.

Trump later confided to a biographer that the duo were "tough guys," relaying a rumor that Sullivan, a 6-foot, 5-inch bear of a man, killed Jimmy Hoffa, the legendary Teamsters boss whose disappearance in July 1975 remains unsolved.

"Because I heard that rumor, I kept my guard up. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be friends with this guy.’ I’ll bet you that if I didn’t hear that rumor, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now," Trump told Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of TrumpNation.

…

But Trump told a different story to casino regulators who were deciding whether to grant him the lucrative gambling license.

"I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people," he said about Shapiro and Sullivan during licensing hearings in 1982, according to "TrumpNation." "Many of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of."

Sullivan's unsavory reputation did not stop Trump from later arranging for him to be hired as a labor negotiator for the Grand Hyatt, a hotel project on Manhattan’s East Side, according to People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Trump also introduced Sullivan to his own banker at Chase, though he declined to guarantee a loan to Sullivan, reported the L.A. Times.

Longo, the real estate broker Trump used in Atlantic City on the Trump Plaza deal, told me in 2011 that he wasn’t aware of Shapiro or Sullivan having any mob ties, and insisted Trump didn’t have any problems at all obtaining his gaming license. "In AC, you always had to be careful who you were dealing with, but Donald did things on the level," Longo told me in 2011.

In his investigative biography, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, reporter Wayne Barrett wrote that Trump’s life "intertwines with the underworld," and he outlined the real-estate developer’s numerous alleged ties to organized crime, including that Trump:

Preferential Treatment For The Donald?

In the book, Barrett also claimed that New Jersey state regulators demonstrated a double standard by granting Trump a casino license while denying licenses to other developers and gambling executives whose conduct was far less troubling than Trump's. In 1985, Hilton Hotels was turned down for a license partly due to the chain’s ties to Sidney Korshak, a lawyer with reputed mob connections. But with Trump, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) never bothered to write a report that raised "the possibility that Cohn's mob liaisons . . . might have been used to facilitate Trump construction projects," wrote Barrett.

Executives at competing gambling companies have often complained that Trump "gets preferential treatment from gambling regulators," wrote Johnston. And in 1991, two members of the state Casino Control Commission accused the DGE of favoritism and a double standard when it comes to Trump. At the time, the CCC was investigating whether Trump’s father, Fred Trump, had made an illegal loan by buying $3 million worth of chips at the Trump Castle in Atlantic City. The elder Trump was trying to give his son an advance on his inheritance and help him make a crucial mortgage payment on the casino—but under the law, it’s illegal for anyone unlicensed to put money into a casino. When the casino admitted the illegal loan and settled for just $30,000, commissioners David Waters and Valerie Armstrong objected that the settlement was too weak. "It’s greater than a disappointment to me, it’s an outrage that the Division of Gaming Enforcement would take this position and fail to carry out what I understand to be its responsibility to enforce the provisions of the Casino Control Act," said Waters, according to Johnston’s book, "Temples of Chance." The division has denied claims of bias.

Earlier, Trump had been accused of lying under oath by commissioner Armstrong when the developer backed out of a commitment to help finance a $40 million road improvement project in 1986. Such a charge, indicating a lack of integrity, could cost Trump his license, notes Johnston in his book. An outraged Armstrong complained that Trump’s testimony on the subject lacked "candor and honesty." But Trump had the backing of other commissioners and his license was renewed on a 4 to 1 vote.

Revealed: The Investigative Report Into Allegations of Mob Ties

In the wake of the Barrett book’s bombshell allegations, the DGE conducted an investigation into the claims that consisted of interviews with Trump lawyers and FBI agents, compiling them into a June 24, 1992 internal report that included the following conclusions:

In the end, the DGE investigators didn't recommend any further action, stating that: "Most of the significant matters in the book have been previously investigated by the division and reported to the Casino Control Commission." The agency's findings didn't surprise Barrett, who says that the regulators couldn't be expected to rule against a developer as powerful as Trump: "The book and the public record is replete with evidence that DGE and the CCC caved to Donald again and again. I am not questioning the integrity of the agents that conducted the review of some of the book's allegations, but Donald controlled 40 percent of the rooms in Atlantic City when the report was done. No way that two state agencies could allow a book to dethrone the king."…

 

 

Donald Trump’s business disaster is worse than you think

Why is Donald Trump getting a pass for his disastrous and incompetent track record of running a public company?

The Republican front-runner has made much of his supposed “success” in business and says he now wants to do the same for America.

But the only part of his business track record for which we have the full picture shows that Trump wasn’t a successful executive but an absolute catastrophe.

For 10 years between 1995 and 2005, Donald Trump ran Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts — and he did it so badly and incompetently that it collapsed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. His stockholders were almost entirely wiped out, losing a staggering 89% of their money. The company actually lost money every single year. In total it racked up more than $600 million in net losses over that period.

Trump was chairman of the board throughout the entire time, and CEO as well for about half of it.

This is the sort of record usually associated with an Enron or a WorldCom or a Pets.com.

Meanwhile, over the same period, all his competitors were enjoying an enormous boom. Take a look at our chart.

While Trump was running Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts into the ground, the Dow Jones index of gambling stocks — the index that Trump himself cited in public filings as his best benchmark — soared 160%. Investors in Harrah’s saw their stake go up by nearly 150%. MGM MGM, -0.40%  quintupled. These people were making out like bandits.

Donald Trump ran the worst performing casino company on the stock market. This isn’t a matter of “opinion.” This isn’t speculation or politics. It’s a matter of plain fact.

However, one person associated with Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts did make money:

Donald J. Trump.

A review of the company’s public filings show that over that period, while his ordinary investors were getting hosed, Trump himself was siphoning millions out of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts through salary, “bonuses” — yes, really — and cozy “service agreements” or side deals with his private corporations.

Check out the relevant page from the 2003 public filing, for example:

In total, Donald Trump pocketed $32 million over nine years, while his public stockholders lost more than $100 million.

Follow the money. It really isn’t that complex.

Now his supporters want to put him in charge of the federal government. They actually hope he will do for America what he’s already done for his business.

Heaven help us all.

 

"There have been multiple media reports about (Donald Trump's) business dealings with the mob, with the mafia."

— Ted Cruz on Sunday, February 28th, 2016 in comments on Meet the Press

Yes, Donald Trump has been linked to the mob
By Linda Qiu on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016 at 11:53 a.m.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/02/ted-cruz/yes-donald-trump-has-been-linked-mob

Donald Trump "seems terrified to release his taxes" because they may reveal his true net worth, his donations to liberal causes, or something even seedier, Sen. Ted Cruz suggested on Meet the Press.

"There have been multiple media reports about Donald's business dealings with the mob, with the mafia," Cruz said Feb. 28. "Maybe his taxes show those business dealings are a lot more extensive than has been reported."

Pressed by host Chuck Todd to back up his claim, Cruz cited reports by ABC and CNN. A Cruz spokesman forwarded us several other media reports detailing the real estate developer’s alleged ties to organized crime. The Trump campaign did not get back to us.

Is Cruz right that the Donald has worked with a few Dons in his career?

HELP US RAISE $15,000 TO HIRE AN EXTRA FACT-CHECKER

It’s important to note that Trump hasn’t been charged with any illegal activity, and it’s reasonable to argue that he was unaware or even a victim in some cases. But Cruz has a point that the mogul has been linked to the mob for decades.

Mob control a ‘fact of life’

Before we detail Trump’s alleged ties, none of this proves that Trump was happy doing business with the mafia or even in cahoots with them at all.

La Cosa Nostra had a virtual monopoly on concrete in New York at the time Trump was adding his name to its skyline in the 1980s. And the mafia’s control over building supplies and labor unions meant that the crime families had a hand in most construction projects in Manhattan.

Trump and other major developers "had to adapt to that situation" or build elsewhere, said James B. Jacobs, a mafia expert who was part of a state task force on organized crime.

"That was the fact of life, that was the way it was," he told PolitiFact. "The contractors and developers weren’t pure victims. You could bribe the mob-controlled union leaders and get relief from the more arduous conflicts. But we had no information that Trump was any different."  

That being said, Trump’s business dealings with the mob or mob-related characters are widely documented. Let’s run through them.

Mafia concrete for Trump Plaza

Trump was first tied to the mafia in the 1980s, when a $7.8 million subcontract for Trump Plaza was awarded to S&A Concrete, according to Fortune. The company, as Cruz correctly says, was partially owned by Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family.

Trump himself acknowledged as much in a December 2015 interview with the Wall Street Journal, admitting that S&A Concrete was "supposedly associated with the mob."

"Virtually every building that was built was built with these companies," he said, adding, "These guys were excellent contractors. They were phenomenal. They could do three floors a week in concrete. Nobody else in the world could do three floors a week. I mean they were unbelievable. Trump Tower, other buildings."

When Salerno was indicted in 1986, the charges specifically mentioned Trump Plaza. Salerno’s 1992 obituary ends with a nod to the luxury highrise and 15 other Manhattan buildings.

Trump World Tower, supported by the Quadrozzi Concrete Company, is also tangentially related to La Cosa Nostra. The head of the company, John Quadrozzi Sr., was tied to the Lucchese crime family and indicted for making illegal payoffs to the mob in 1992.

TIME and Daily Beast have speculated that Trump Tower was also built with mafia influence, though the evidence is less concrete.

Atlantic City partnerships

Trump’s alleged mob dealings were not confined to New York. According to reports from the Huffington Post  and Philadelphia Inquirer, Trump made a deal in Atlantic City with Kenneth Shapiro, an associate of mob boss Nicky Scarfo, and mob-connected labor boss Daniel Sullivan.

Trump seemed aware of this, calling Shapiro "a third-rate, local real estate mafia" and Sullivan "the guy who killed Jimmy Hoffa."

Nonetheless, in 1981, Trump leased a portion of the land for Trump Plaza and Casino from a company the two men controlled, according a report by New Jersey gaming regulators. The company refused to cooperate with the authorities, and Trump eventually ended the partnership and bought out their shares.

Later Trump brought on Sullivan as a labor negotiator at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and introduced the man to his own banker, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Through intermediaries Trump bought the property for the casino from the "crown prince" of the Philadelphia mob, Salvatore Testa, for $1.1 million in 1982. Multiple media reports and an unauthorized biography about Trump allege this was more than twice its market value. (Testa purchased the property in 1977 for $195,000.)

According to The Federalist, two construction companies controlled by Nicky Scarfo ended up building Trump Plaza and Casino.

"You had contractors that were supposedly mob-oriented all over Atlantic City," Trump said when the Wall Street Journal asked him about it, adding that "every single casino company used the same companies, just I hope you will say that."

A few years later, Trump’s organized crime connections extended overseas. In 1992, a Senate subcommittee named Danny Leung, who was then the vice president for foreign marketing at Trump Taj Mahal, as an associate of the Hong Kong-based organized crime group 14K Triad.

"Leung has also given complimentary tickets for hotel rooms and Asian shows to numerous members and associates of Asian organized crime," reads the report, which also identified three other triad-connected business associates or former employees of Trump’s gambling empire.

According to gaming regulators, Leung "flew in 16 Italian organized crime figures from Canada who stole more than $1 million from the casino in a credit scam," reported the New York Daily News in 1995. "The incident was never reported because Trump never filed charges."

Leung, who had a separate contract to bring gamblers from Toronto to the casino, denied the affiliation to organized crime, and his casino and junket licenses were renewed. (The Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in 1991, and his other Atlantic City properties folded a decade later.)

Mob-linked business adviser

And there’s Felix Sater, "a twice-convicted Russian émigré who served prison time and had documented mafia connections" and the subject of the ABC story Cruz referenced.

Sater pleaded guilty to a charge of money laundering in 1998 and was indicted again in 2000 for taking part in a $40 million stock scheme involving four Mafia families, according to the New York Times report.

From 2003 to 2007, Sater traveled the country promoting projects for Trump, and his company was a partner in the Trump SoHo hotel. Trump told the Times he "never knew that."

Three years later, Sater returned to the Trump Organization and had business cards that described him as Trump’s "senior advisor," the AP reported. Trump told the AP that he’s "not familiar" with Sater.

Our ruling

Cruz said, "There have been multiple media reports about Donald's business dealings with the mob, with the mafia."

While it’s important to note that these connections were not atypical in the real estate and casino businesses in the 1980s, Cruz’s statement is accurate. Media reports have linked Trump to mafia bosses and mob-connected business associates for decades.

We rate the claim True.

 

Trump and the Russian Mafia, Splain’n to do

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Denise Simon

Trump picked stock fraud felon as senior adviser

WASHINGTON (AP)— Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man’s past involvement in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records.

Portions of Trump’s relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organization as early as 2003. Sater’s criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name. When Sater’s criminal past and Mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater.

But less than three years later, Trump renewed his ties with Sater. Sater presented business cards describing himself as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, and he had an office on the same floor as Trump’s own office in New York’s Trump Tower, The Associated Press learned through interviews and court records.

Deeper dive from the Courthouse News:

MANHATTAN (CN) – The Bayrock Group and Nixon Peabody are among 35 defendants sued for $1 billion, whom 13 plaintiffs, including estates of Holocaust survivors, accuse of “the illegal concealment of Felix Sater’s 1998 $40 million federal racketeering conviction, and subsequent 2009 sentencing.”
The summons and notice in New York County Supreme Court contains few details. Three of the six pages of the document are taken up with names of the parties, their attorneys, and the charges.
The Miami Herald reported last year that the CIA helped Sater conceal his conviction for securities fraud while using him to track down Stinger missiles for sale in his native Russia. This was “a decade before he launched the celebrated Fort Lauderdale Trump Tower,” the Herald reported in a Sept. 8, 2012 article.
But the Trump Tower failed, and “a legal battle has ensued between burned investors trying to reveal Sater’s background and federal agents who say national security is at stake,” the Herald reported.
Prosecutors in that case asked to keep Sater’s record sealed, in the national interest.
Sater was fined $25,000 for his original $40 million stock swindle, did no jail time and was not ordered to pay anything in restitution, according to the Herald.
In the new summons and notice in New York, a string of investors want to hold Sater and his attorneys and businesses responsible. The document does not mention the alleged CIA connection.
It states: “Plaintiffs seek relief against those directly and vicariously responsible for the perpetration of perhaps a billion dollars or more of fraud based on the illegal concealment of Felix Sater’s 1998 $40 million federal racketeering conviction, and subsequent 2009 sentencing, as well as related and other unrelated relief, and declaratory relief against those persons, primarily financial institution, insofar as to affix by liquidating judgment thereof such liability is owed to them.
“‘Bayrock,’ as used herein, refers to that certain association of juridical entities including, for example and without limitation, Bayrock Group LLC, Bayrock Camelback LLC, Bayrock Whitestone LLC, Bayrock Spring Street LLC, and Bayrock Merrimac LLC, in the last ten years variously engaged in the businesses of financial institution fraud, tax fraud, partnership fraud, insurance fraud, litigation fraud, bankruptcy fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, human trafficking, child prostitution, statutory rape, and, on occasion, real estate.
“One of the overarching, dominant themes of those Bayrock lines of business has been the fraudulent concealment of the substantial degree to which it was owned directly or equitably by Felix Sater, who was represented at various times at least during the period 2002 to 2008 to be its Chief Operating Officer and at times as its Managing Director.
“Another overarching, dominant theme of Bayrock’s lines has been the fraudulent concealment of Felix Sater’s conviction for racketeering, to which he secretly pled guilty in 1998, admitting to participating in the operation of a pump-and-dump stock fraud, along with members of Russian and Mafia organized crime, which defrauded investors, many of them senior citizens, including Holocaust survivors, of at a minimum $40,000,000, now in today’s dollars some $150,000,000 of stolen wealth as measured by the ‘well managed account’ theory.
“The Estates of Ernest and Judit Gottdiener; Ervin Tausky, a natural person, and Suan Investments, a Gottdiener family holding company, are some of those victims, survivors of the Nazi extermination of the Jews of Hungary and federally protected crime victims of Mr. Sater’s racketeering, as such his creditors. They were defrauded of their rights to restitution and, because the government illegally concealed Sater’s entire case, their rights to sue him. The Gottdieners claim damages for the fraud on them against everyone responsible for the 15-year delay and deprivation of their civil rights.
“Insofar as Sater used Bayrock as a personal piggybank to skim millions upon millions of its assets and hide them out of the reach (for now) of these and all the other hundreds if not thousands of victims to whom he now is liable over $500,000,000 in RICO damages, and would not have been able to do so without the facilitation of his concealment frauds by others, the Gottdieners sue all those for the damage they caused.
“Among those are corrupt attorneys who used fraudulent and sham court processes to hide Sater and his frauds for their own gain, as many of them did so with the specific intent, inter alia, of raking in fees from him, essentially taking the Gottdiener’s and all the others’ money for themselves by keeping it out of the hands of the victims, where it should have gone; they are sued, inter alia, for vicarious liability of all damages caused and for forfeiture of all such fees. …
“Finally, as Sater admitted at his sentencing he knew no banks would lend to Bayrock if they knew about his concealed conviction, a judicial estoppel and admission against penal interest, lenders and investors who were fraudulently induced to provide $1,000,000,000 or so to Bayrock by this concealment ought to get their money back, so they are sued in declaratory judgment to fix the liability of Bayrock and all those liable to them through Bayrock to them.
“All defendants except as noted are sued for all liability, that is, for example only, Kelly Moore, who stood in Sater’s sentencing as his attorney knowing it was illegally hidden, hearing him admit that he had been using that illegal concealment to perpetrate bank fraud, and without privilege to do so committed fraud and other actionable wrongs in maintaining sham litigation to stop those who learned of this from revealing it for years, thus knowingly facilitating the cover-ups, shall expect to have plenary liability asserted against her by every Plaintiff in every theory for every cause in the scope of the overarching conspiracy. It is the express intent of Plaintiffs to assert all liability to the fullest scope of the state law vicarious liability equivalent of civil federal Pinkerton liability against everyone participating in any identifiable and well-pled conspiracy. Those who thought nothing of helping Sater and his co-conspirators defraud, the littlest senior citizens and Holocaust survivors or the biggest banks and lenders, who thought nothing of helping him and others steal those victims’ money, must be made to pay with their own.”
Here are the defendants: Bayrock Group LLC; Tevrik Arif; Julius Schwarz; Felix Satter; Brian Halberg; Salvatore Lauria; Alex Salomon; Jerry Weinrich; Salomon & Co. PC; Akerman Senterfitt LLP; Martin Domb; Craig Brown; Duval & Stachenfeld LLP; Bruce Stachenfeld; David Granin; Nixon Peabody LLP; Adam Gilbert; Roberts & Holland LLP; Elliot Pisem; Michael Samuel; Mel Dogan; Bayrock Spring Street LLC; Does; Bayrock Whitestone LLC; Bayrock Camelback LLC; Bayrock Merrimac LLC; Bayrock Group Inc.; Tamir Sapir; Alex Sapir; Does; Walter Saurack; Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP; Kelly Moore; Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP; Nader Mobargha; Michael Beys; Beys Stein & Mobargha LLP; and Todd Kaminsky.Here are the plaintiffs: J Kriss; Michael Ejekam; Bayrock Merrimac LLC; Bayrock Group LLC; Bayrock Spring Street LLC; Bayrock Whitestone LLC; Bayrock Spring Street LLC; Bayrock Whitestone LLC; Bayrock Camelback LLC; E/O Ernest; E/Ojudit Gottdiener; Ervin Tausky; Suan Investments.

 

WHAT PUTIN’S EMBRACE OF TRUMP TELLS US ABOUT TRUMP   { Indeed, from an american perspective, nothing good … after all, as I call a spade a spade, I readily as well, call a despot a despot … You see, as bad as america is and has become (let’s not pretend … america’s corrupt, meaningfully lawless, and has significantly deteriorated in terms of quality of life, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf   http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm        http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm    ); yet, on its worst day, america’s still a far better place to live, particularly for an English speaking person as myself, than Russia under what all concede to be a historically typical Russian paranoid iron hand, enabled by failed american leadership as evidenced particularly recently by george dumbya bush, barrack obama et als … (so dreadful that I believe even Snowden laments his choice … I would … I had high regard for General Lebed; and, we all know whose boys took him out … then there’s the now all-powerful and pervasive Russian mob – the  new york/trump connection? -  the mystery lies not far beneath the surface for those unafraid to look …}  by Daniel P. Vajdich March 22, 2016 4:00 AM The Republican electorate and establishment have two viable candidates to choose from at this late stage. The first is a billionaire from New York named Donald Trump who displays few conservative values, wants to dismantle U.S. leadership around the world, and uses demagoguery to exploit the legitimate frustrations of Americans worried about the decline of their country. The other is a Republican senator from Texas named Ted Cruz who is now the only credible alternative to Trump. But, in addition to Trump’s false conservatism, longtime support for Hillary Clinton, and transgression from the most sacred principles of our party, Republicans should consider his coziness with Vladimir Putin and what this tells us about Trump. At a news conference last year, Russia’s authoritarian president referred to Trump as “very bright” and “talented without doubt.” In response, Trump said, “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” Putin is certainly well respected within nationalist, anti-U.S. segments of the Russian population. These America-haters openly support Donald Trump. It is especially noteworthy that the man who is considered Putin’s ideological inspiration — Aleksandr Dugin — has endorsed Trump. In February, Dugin wrote, “Trump is a leader,” adding: “We want to put trust in Donald Trump. Vote for Trump and see what will happen.” This is high praise from a man who wants Russia to adopt a “genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism.” He also believes that “only a global crusade against the U.S. . . . is capable of being an adequate response” and declares that the “American Empire should be destroyed.” Ted Cruz says that Putin is a bully and that the American president must negotiate with him only from a position of strength. And what of Ted Cruz’s attitude toward Putin? Cruz has consistently recognized the threats and challenges posed by Russia. He rightly criticizes President Obama over his failure to thwart Kremlin policies that are undermining U.S. interests throughout the world. Senator Cruz calls Putin a thug and gives voice to the brave Russians who have made countless sacrifices as they strive to democratize their country and counter the Kremlin’s human-rights abuses. Trump, on the other hand, refuses to even acknowledge let alone condemn Vladimir Putin’s complicity in the murder of dozens of journalists during his 16 years in power. Ted Cruz says that Putin is a bully and that the American president must negotiate with him only from a position of strength. President Obama’s policy, Cruz contends, is to appease adversaries such as Putin and abandon friends. Donald Trump makes essentially the same criticisms of Putin and Obama, but his proposed policies and his desire to move out of Putin’s way in Syria and Ukraine are much closer to appeasement than strength. If the U.S. became a Putin-style managed democracy, we would see repression of political opponents, a clampdown on media freedom, and little tolerance for civil society. The Republican electorate and establishment must ask themselves what Putin’s embrace of Trump says about the real-estate mogul. What does it reveal — not about his foreign policy but about Donald Trump the person? It should be clear to everyone that Putin wants to see the United States weakened and does not have our country’s best interests at heart. For years, Putin has listened as American and Western leaders have urged him to move away from repression and authoritarianism, but he has openly and consistently rejected democracy. Instead, Putin has opted for what he refers to as “managed democracy” — an oxymoron if ever there were one. There is no doubt that Putin would be maliciously gleeful if an American president adopted his style of autocratic governance. And this is exactly why Putin supports Donald Trump. The two men are authoritarian kindred spirits. If the U.S. became a Putin-style managed democracy, we would see repression of political opponents, a clampdown on media freedom, and little tolerance for civil society. Does this seem like a far-fetched scenario for our country if Trump were to win the presidency? It would be a mistake to assume that. Those who refuse to take seriously the evidence of Trump’s authoritarian attitudes, his contempt for American values, and his willingness to disregard the Constitution should reconsider — they should sincerely reflect on the man that Vladimir Putin would like to see as our next president. Putin wants a United States that is weak, divided, and in conflict with its own ideals. This is exactly what he will get if Donald Trump becomes president.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433066/donald-trump-why-putin-loves-him

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump: The Kremlin’s Candidate by Robert Zubrin  

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433613/trump-kremlins-candidate 

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com

 

 

 

trump: moscow’s sleeper agent … trump and alexander dugin …

 

Is Trump a Sleeper Agent for Moscow? - Accuracy In Media  { I would say, at the least, their ‘defacto agent’, born of his interrelationships with the multi-ethnic gangs of new york/new jersey; but particularly, the Russian mafia of Brighton Beach/new york fame, the strong arm source of great wealth and extortionate power/influence for among others, former communist KGB agents of a failed regime as putin indeed also was, and must be included in said negative light/category in light of his own ‘rocket speed wealth enhancement’. }

www.aim.org › AIM Column

Accuracy in Media

Feb 29, 2016 - Trump has spoken highly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing him ... Trump has his own Alexander Dugin—a political operative and ...

Top Russian Ideologue's View of Donald Trump (Alexander ...

russia-insider.com › Russia Insider › Politics

Mar 2, 2016 - Top Russian Ideologue's View of Donald Trump (Alexander Dugin) ... If it wasn't for Donald Trump, it would be quite ordinary and without any ...

'Putin's Rasputin' Endorses Trump | The Weekly Standard

www.weeklystandard.com/putins...trump/.../20013...

The Weekly Standard

Mar 1, 2016 - Aleksandr Dugin, otherwise known as “Putin's Rasputin," has ... of the Kremlin-backed Katehon think tank, Dugin says "Trump...is a sensation.

Trump | The Fourth Revolutionary War

https://4threvolutionarywar.wordpress.com/tag/trump/

Posts about Trump written by Akira. ... directed at the Trump campaign by a great many affluent white liberals, rather, lies ... In Trump We Trust | Alexander Dugin.

 

Dugin's Guideline - In Trump We Trust - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lflbAHXr28Q

Mar 7, 2016 - Uploaded by N. Wahid Azal

Russian sociologist and fascist theorist Aleksandr Dugin endorses the baffoon and fascist son of American ...

 

Russia Hearts Donald Trump - The Daily Beast

www.thedailybeast.com/.../russia-hearts-donald-trump.ht...

The Daily Beast

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 14, 2016 - Even one of Russia's most radical nationalist leaders, the inspiration behind the Donbas rebel movement, Alexander Dugin, endorsed the GOP ...

 

 

Dugin on Trump - Radix Journal

www.radixjournal.com/blog/2016/3/2/dugin-on-trump

Mar 2, 2016 - Dugin on Trump. Alexander Dugin · March 2, 2016 .... So, Jews are alarmed by GOP going rogue elephant with Trump. Neocons had married ...

 

Is Trump a Sleeper Agent for Moscow? - Accuracy In Media

www.aim.org › AIM Column

Accuracy in Media

 

 

 

Feb 29, 2016 - Trump has spoken highly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing him ... Trump has his own Alexander Dugin—a political operative and ...

 

 

Donald Trump: CIA director 'ridiculous' on waterboarding

 

 

Donald Trump: CIA director 'ridiculous' on waterboarding   { t_rump is worse than ridiculous … he is an unequivocal tragedy for and global and domestic embarrassment to america … make america great again? … trump makes america less great by his mere presence therein and for each day his so-called con/fraud/candidacy continues … Reality: regardless of  actual reality, A CIA Director would be ridiculous if he said anything other  than what CIA Director Brennan said … trump’s a sick dude and dangerous blowhard … Moreover, I believe a CIA Director would be compelled to refuse trump’s orders to torture because much like trump’s idol whose oratory trump is confirmed to have obsessively listened to, viz., adolph Hitler, I believe trump is a psychopath. }

USA TODAY‎ -

Donald Trump is taking on CIA Director John Brennan on torture, saying Brennan's pledge ...

 

 

 

CIA Chief: I Would Refuse Trump's Orders to Torture

U.S. News & World Report‎ - 2 days ago

More news for trump criticizes brennan cia

CIA Chief: I Would Refuse Trump's Orders to Torture - US ...

www.usnews.com/.../cia-chief-i-would-refuse...

U.S. News & World Report

 

 

 

 

 

2 days ago - CIA Director John Brennan testifies on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Feb. ... Trump has been routinely criticized for his stance on torture since ...

 

CIA Director Brennan: CIA Won't Waterboard Ever Again ...

www.breitbart.com/.../cia-director-brennan-cia-w...

Breitbart News Network

 

 

 

2 days ago - CIA Director Brennan: CIA Won't Waterboard Ever Again, Even if Future President Orders It. ... Trump is in favor of going “beyond” waterboarding, while Cruz ... Kasich Criticizes Religious Liberty Laws: 'Chill Out, Get Over It'.

 

Donald Trump Calls Out CIA Chief Over Waterboarding ...

www.hngn.com/.../donald-trump-calls-out-cia-chief-over-waterboarding...

8 hours ago - Donald Trump has lashed out at CIA Chief John Brennan over his ... How He Plans To Compel Mexico To Pay For Wall; Obama Criticizes Plan ...

 

 

 

 

What The Media Should Know About Trump's "Political ...

mediamatters.org/.../02/...trumps.../208732

Media Matters for America

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 22, 2016 - And that would have been given to the CIA. ..... Though he criticized Trump's "problem with minorities and women," Moore ..... Brennan Suen ›››.

 

 

 

 

Fox Contributor: CIA Director Brennan Was “Clearly Playing ...

mediamatters.org/...cia...brennan was.../20985...

Media Matters for America

 

 

 

 

 

2 days ago - Fox Contributor: CIA Director Brennan Was “Clearly Playing His Part In The ... Fox's Steve Doocy Praises Trump For Endorsing Waterboarding: He "Hit It Out ..... responded by criticizing Obama for even answering the question.

 

Conservative Wisconsin Talk Radio Hosts Bash Trump On ...

mediamatters.org/research/...tr/209764

Media Matters for America

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 5, 2016 - Wisconsin conservative talk radio hosts have been "criticizing and ..... Fox Contributor: CIA Director Brennan Was “Clearly Playing His Part In ...

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433613/trump-kremlins-candidate 

 

 

 

 

‘MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW’ … (the sleeper agent) trump awakens (Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)Los Angeles Times-May 10, 2016 "When [Trump] says he wants to withdraw from NATO, the most ... He's repeatedly called NATO "obsolete" because the U.S. funds a ... described the party as "divided, [but] will unite," according to exit ... A Los Angeles attorney who leads a political party that advocates white separatism is on Donald Trump's ...

(Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)Los Angeles Times-May 10, 2016 "When [Trump] says he wants to withdraw from NATO, the most ... He's repeatedly called NATO "obsolete" because the U.S. funds a ... described the party as "divided, [but] will unite," according to exit ... A Los Angeles attorney who leads a political party that advocates white separatism is on Donald Trump's ...

MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW … (THE SLEEPER AGENT) TRUMP AWAKENS The sleeper has awakened ... no, not Maudib of Frank Herbert's fictional 'Dune' fame; but rather, more in the genre of Fred Forsythe, John LeCarre(David Cornwall), and Robert Ludlum ... as in Moscow's sleeper agent has awakened [(for the benefit of trump's 'informed, learned, intelligent, educated and unwavering core supporters' ...hmmmm..., Moscow is the capital of Russia (and the former Soviet Union)] ... One, and only one nation benefits from the exit of america from NATO as advocated by 'the donald'  ... If you guessed Russia ... you guessed right ... maybe deal-meister/artist trump has rights to new berlin wall/iron curtain construction contracts ... WOW! ... Then there's (trump fan) denny rodman's bro, kim jun ill of No.Korea, whom trump says he'll court saying that South Korea and Japan could also get nukes ... sounds like a plan, don ... NOT! ... america's nukes will work just fine on north korea ... Yes, Russia's sleeper agent trump has awakened - 'Redrum' dawn? (that's murder spelled backwards ... ‘shining’, sea to shining sea, hmmm) ... If THEY don’t take trump the mobster down, if THEY let the ‘say anything dissembler’ get away with what he has already gotten away with, no citizen, nor leader in america or any other affected nation should even minimally follow much less sacrifice for misguided, misdirected american policy.

 

Nato and US defence chiefs issue security warnings over Brexit The Guardian       Potential President Trump fills world leaders with fear: 'It's gone from funny to ...The Guardian    Trump's Miss Universe Foreign Policy New York Times

SPECTERS OF THE PAST

02.28.16 9:15 PM ET

The Klansmen and Mobsters in Donald Trump’s Closet

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/29/the-kkk-and-mob-allegations-haunting-donald-trump.html

Trump’s campaign is haunted by his reported dealings with a Mafia boss, a drug smuggler, and a Russian gangster, as well as his dad’s alleged Klan arrest.

 

Ghosts of the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia swirled up from Donald Trump’s past as he blustered on toward a future few could have foreseen.

The Klan ghosts were roused by Trump himself when he failed to reject immediately an endorsement by former KKK grand dragon David Duke.

“I’d have to look at the group,” he told CNN on Sunday.

He afterward tweeted, “I DISAVOW,” including a video clip from Friday in which he had indeed disavowed Duke, if not exactly the Klan.

But that only deepened the mystery of why he had hesitated to disavow Duke and the Klan on Sunday. It is especially puzzling given reports that somebody with Trump’s father’s name, listed as living at the father’s address, had been arrested at a KKK protest turned “near riot” in Jamaica, Queens, on Memorial Day in 1927.

The police had moved in after the Klansmen broke a promise not to march in their robes and hoods. The Klansmen later papered the neighborhood with handbills declaring, “Americans Assaulted by Roman Catholic Police of New York City.”

“Native-born Protestant Americans clubbed and beaten when they exercise their rights in the country of their birth,” the handbills said. “Liberty and democracy have been trampled upon when Native-born Protestant Americans dare to organize to protect one flag, the American flag… one language, the English language.”

As reported by The New York Times, Fred Trump of 175-24 Devonshire Road, Jamaica, Queens, was arrested. He subsequently appeared in a Jamaica court and was freed without bail by Judge Thomas Doyle, who was almost certainly Catholic.

The arrest and address are confirmed by the precinct logbook, though Fred Trump’s age is given as 25 when he was 22 at the time. Donald Trump has flatly denied that the incident ever occurred.

“He was never arrested,” Donald Trump told the Daily Mail. “He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened. This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It’s a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.”

If it was in fact all a mistake, you would think that Donald Trump would have been repulsed by any association with the KKK, even if the rhetoric in that long ago handbill did contain some of the same sentiments he has voiced to such effect during the present presidential campaign.

Fred Trump certainly had no problem dealing with Catholics as well as Jews of the Brooklyn Democratic machine as he made his fortune with the help of tax abatements and subsidies. The machine was inextricably linked to the Mafia, which also essentially controlled the construction industry.

In fairness, all major New York builders had to deal with mob-linked firms and unions well past the time Donald Trump built his signature tower. The same was true in Atlantic City when he built his casinos. Trump’s dealings there went beyond Mafiosi to include at least one member of a triad. A U.S. Senate report suggests he had no trouble working with the Chinese when it came to this alleged organized crime member (PDF).

On Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz sought to rouse the mob ghosts of Donald Trump’s earlier days, saying on NBC that “ABC, CNN, multiple news reports have reported about his dealings with, for example, S&A Construction, which was owned by ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno, who is a mobster who is in jail.”

Trump did deal with S&A Construction in the early 1980s, though not necessarily out of choice.

S&A was indeed owned by Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno of the Genovese crime family, but he was sentenced to 100 years in prison back in 1986 and died behind bars in 1992.

So an apologist might just shrug and say it was what everybody had to do back in the day in order to build anything at all.

A Trump supporter might even suggest that he and indeed all his fellow builders were victims of the mob in that era.

But few of the builders who accepted S&A concrete as an offer they could not refuse actually met with Salerno, as Trump is said to have done in the office of Roy Cohn the lawyer and fixer, who represented The Donald as well as the Don.

The Smoking Gun also reported that the now-extensive licensing of Trump name began with two lines of glamorized Cadillac limos — the Trump Golden Series and the Trump Executive Series — produced by Dillinger Coach Works, which was itself apparently named after the famous gangland figure John Dillinger. The company was owned by two convicted felons, one of whom, John Staluppi, has been identified by the FBI as a member of the Columbo crime family.

And only Trump helped a lady friend of a mob-connected union boss secure financing for three duplex apartments priced at nearly $10 million directly beneath the Trump penthouse in the signature Trump Tower. Verina Hixon’s complex included the building’s only private swimming pool, an addition that required structural alterations to the building.

As reported by Wayne Barrett in his book Trump: The Deals and the Downfall and confirmed by law enforcement officials as well as by people who worked on Trump Tower, the beautiful Hixon was a close pal of union boss John Cody, an avowed admirer of Jimmy Hoffa and also close to Cohn.

The value of Cody’s goodwill became clear when his union, Teamsters Local 282, called a citywide strike just as Trump Tower was near completion. The Trump site was exempted.

The danger of Cody’s displeasure became equally clear when Trump grew so weary of Hixon’s demands that he finally said no. Concrete deliveries ceased not just at Trump Tower but at sites across the city. Hixon soon got what she wanted.

Then Cody was sentenced to federal prison in 1984 for extortion and for attempting to murder the man who took over the union following his arrest. The extent of Cody’s fall became clear when Hixon was forced out of the tower. Trump no longer had her beneath his 68th-floor aerie, which is in truth on the 58th floor, the numbers in the tower’s elevators going from 1 to 6 and then 16 to 68 to make it all seem huger.

As he expanded into the casino business in Atlantic City, Trump agreed to pay twice the market value for land occupied by a bar owned by the sons of two Philadelphia Mafia bosses, the boys having made a name for themselves as part of a crew called the Young Executioners. The purchase, also reported by Barrett in his book, was reportedly routed through the secretary of Paddy McGahn, a thrice-wounded Marine war hero who had become as influential in his city as Roy Cohn was in New York.

In bringing high rollers to Atlantic City, Trump used a helicopter service owned by Joseph Weichselbaum, a mob-connected drug smuggler who lived in a Trump apartment while awaiting sentencing on narcotics charges in 1987. The case was prosecuted in Ohio but was moved to New Jersey for reasons that remain unclear.

As reported by The Smoking Gun, the case was then assigned to The Donald’s sister, federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry. Some serious ghosts would soon be rising from that supposed coincidence had somebody not thought to quickly shift the case to another judge. Barry’s now-deceased husband, John Barry, often served as The Donald’s lawyer in New Jersey.

Trump’s dealings with mob figures appear to have included at least one member of Chinese organized crime. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Government Affairs reported in 1992 that Danny Leung was both a vice president for marketing at Trump’s Taj Mahal casino and an associate of the 14K Triad.

“He was formerly a business partner with Eddie Louie, a 14K Triad member and the brother of Nickie Louie, aka Louie Yin Poy, a former leader of the Ghost Shadows Gang,” the committee reported. “Leung has also given complimentary tickets for hotel rooms and Asian shows to numerous members and associates of Asian organized crime.”

The committee notes, “The 14K Triad comprises over 30 subgroups which include an estimated membership of over 20,000… The 14K engages in a variety of criminal activities including heroin trafficking, alien smuggling and counterfeit credit card manufacturing, and has connections in the United States for all of these purposes.”

More recently, Trump was joined in building the Trump SoHo by the son of a convicted extortionist described in court papers as a Russian gangster. Court records also show that the son has himself been convicted of felony assault and of bilking investors out of millions in a stock scheme.

Trump has insisted that he only had minimal dealings with the felon, Felix Sater, and was unaware of the man’s record until it was reported in the newspapers. Trump has also insisted that he had minimal dealings with John Cody, telling The Daily Beast that “I barely knew him,” describing the union boss as “a bad guy.” Trump has further denied ever encountering Salerno, though the encounter has been described by a Cohn assistant and there is no disputing that Trump did business with the mobster’s firm.

Just the name of the long-dead mobster was enough for Cruz to rouse the ghost of the Mafia from Trump’s past. Trump himself roused the ghost of the KKK, by chance on the very day that three people were stabbed at a Klan rally that turned into a near riot, too reminiscent of that long-ago one where a man with the same name and address as Trump’s dad was arrested.

Not that the smilingly spooky Donald Trump seems even slightly scared by any of the ghosts of his past as he continues to scare so many of us on the way to Super Tuesday.

 

 

 Ron Paul says Trump troubles him The Hill | Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said on Thursday that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s ‘aggressive personality’ troubles him. { If only someone had said that about hitler … } 

TRUMP JUMPS TO FIRST PLACE... { Wow! … How irrevocably far america’s fallen … ny/american mobster/mental case don ‘the donald’ t-rump … don, you must complete your fourth reich aspiration by writing your ‘Mein Kampf’ from inside a jail cell … paralleling your idol, adolph, whose orations you obsessively listened to for inspiration (from author O’Donnell as per Ivanna Trump) …}
Leaves third-party door open...   { ‘The Donald’, as did his psychopathic idol, ‘The Furor’ of dark days past hits/exploits a ‘hot-button’ issue, illegal immigration, arguing for selective/arbitrary enforcement of the law in that regard [conveniently exempting/sparing/ignoring him and his <1%> from far more destructive (economically and otherwise) criminal activities] and like his kindred spirits, the nazis, ramps up the rhetoric … The truth/reality is that the aforesaid immigration debacle is but a fraction of the damage/cost to the nation of home-grown crimes of corruption, bribery, (drug) money laundering and financial frauds in the hundreds of billions (along with citizen violent crimes which has made the u.s. number 1 in that regard for many decades), integral to and attributes of his indigenous new york/new jersey nationwide sinkhole; the frenzy obscuring the magnitude of such home-grown crimes while focusing on the almost insignificant by financial comparison immigration issue … After all, trump’s benefited mightily from such bubble frauds and through political power seeks to lock in the ill-founded wealth for himself and the other greedy criminal 1%. Where was he when the fraudulent bubbles were expanding … counting his money/gains along with the rest of the small 1% while 99% were bearing the brunt/cost of such blatantly misguided/oft times illegal policy … appreciating, not deprecating until irrevocable, the 1% wealth enhancing crimes to the detriment of the nation and 99% of the populace … t_rump’s a fraud on the nation and any nations worldwide that have had the misfortune to buy into ‘the donald’s’ hitlerian attempt to fool ‘all of the people’ not ‘some of the time’, but this one time to protect his undeserved gains through raw, unbridled(in his maniacal hands), power at the expense of those who can least afford it … your pain, his gain is the inevitable and invariable ultimate reality (Donald Trump Empire Sought Visas For At Least 1100 Foreign Workers Huffington Post) … [ If only someone had said that about hitler! … ]    

 

2-22-16  Harvard professor compares Donald Trump's rise to Hitler's

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican

Donald Trump is LITERALLY Hitler!Trump: Our Illegal Alien in the GOP See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel.

Bill Maher Points Out How Frighteningly Similar are Donald trump and hitler ...  huffingtonpost.com

According To Bill Maher, Donald Trump Sounds Like Hitler youtube.com

We’re going to make Germany great again, that I can tell you ... www.salon.com/2016/03/05/were_going_to_make_german

2-15-16 Influential and Authoritative National Review dumps trump

http://albertpeia.com/conservativesagainsttrump.htm

1-26-16: t_rump: ‘…my supporters are smart and loyal…I could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone and they’d still support me…my poll numbers wouldn’t change’… {When I first heard this sick, outlandish, psychopathic quote I was reluctant to comment upon/post it thinking it must be slickly out of context…it’s not!…as a matter of fact, it’s even worse in context…he meant it!…to be sure, he rivals hitler with his similarly sick devotees buying into his ‘psychopathy’…(so over the top that even the presence of the full moon can’t justify trump’s dangerous lunacy-don’t forget, nuclear weapons exacerbate a globally perilous and precarious doomsday scenario…(how embarrassing for trump supporters, backers, apologists and particularly, america! ….. smart … supporters?… How ‘bout deaf, dumb, and blind … like those who ignored what balanced, intelligent people warned of psychopath hitler, failed to understand the broad/far-reaching implications of hitler’s modus operandi, and failed to see the hitlerian insanity in plain sight)}

 

 

 

Harvard professor compares Donald Trump's rise to Hitler's

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican

2-15-16 Influential and Authoritative National Review dumps trump

http://albertpeia.com/conservativesagainsttrump.htm


Mitt Romney suggests there's a "bombshell" in Donald Trump's taxes CBS News

Mitt Romney.

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday called on Republican candidates to release their tax returns — and speculated there could be a "bombshell" in those of frontrunner Donald Trump.

"We have good reason to believe that there's a bombshell in Donald Trump's taxes," Romney told Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Wednesday.

"What do you mean?" Cavuto asked Romney.

Romney said:

Well, I think there's something there. Either he's not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is, or he hasn't been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay. Or perhaps he hasn't been giving money to the vets or the disabled, like he's been telling us he's been doing.

Romney's statement came after Cavuto asked him why he had not yet made an endorsement in the Republican presidential race. As Trump has continued to march toward the nomination, Republican Party establishment members have rallied around the candidacy of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Romney said he'd like to see the taxes of each candidate.

"Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have not shown us their back taxes," Romney said. "This was an issue on my campaign."

Indeed, the Obama campaign and its Democratic allies in 2012 made Romney's taxes a signature issue. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously speculated that Romney didn't pay any taxes for a decade.

Romney eventually released two years' worth of returns that showed he had paid an effective rate of less than 15%. He called on the Republican candidates to do the same but zeroed in on Trump's supposed hesitance to do so.

"The reason I think there's a bombshell in there is that every time he's asked about his taxes, he dodges or delays and says, 'Well, we're working on it,'" Romney said of Trump.

Trump mocked Romney as a "tough guy" on Twitter later Wednesday.

"Mitt Romney, who totally blew an election that should have been won and whose tax returns made him look like a fool, is now playing tough guy," the mogul wrote.

Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday that he would release his returns "at some point, probably." He has also bristled at the notion, as Romney suggested, that any of his financial statements might show that he is not as wealthy as he has claimed.

He told Hewitt:

We'll be working on it. Everything is very much, you know, I gave my financials ahead of schedule, much ahead of schedule. I had a long time to give them, and I gave them immediately. And they were very complex, also, and very big, and they turned out to be extremely good, much better, actually, than people thought.

 

 

HERE ARE 9 EXAMPLES OF DONALD TRUMP BEING RACIST
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump may have failed to disavow the Ku Klux Klan this weekend, but he'll have you know he is not racist. In fact, he claims to be “the least racist person that you have ever met,” and last summer he pulled out the old standby about not having a racist bone in his body.

But he hasn’t given us a lot of reason to believe that. In fact, despite Trump’s protests to the contrary, he has a long history of saying and doing racist things. It's not really surprising that he's won the support and praise of the country’s white supremacists.

Here’s a running list of some of the most glaringly racist things associated with Trump. We’re sure we’ll be adding to it soon.

The Justice Department sued his company -- twice -- for not renting to black people

When Trump was serving as the president of his family's real estate company, the Trump Management Corporation, in 1973, the Justice Department sued the company for alleged racial discrimination against black people looking to rent apartments in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

The lawsuit charged that the company quoted different rental terms and conditions to black rental candidates than it did with white candidates, and that the company lied to black applicants about apartments not being available. Trump called those accusations “absolutely ridiculous” and sued the Justice Department for $100 million in damages for defamation.

Without admitting wrongdoing, the Trump Management Corporation settled the original lawsuit two years later and promised not to discriminate against black people, Puerto Ricans or other minorities. Trump also agreed to send weekly vacancy lists for his 15,000 apartments to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and to allow the NYUL to present qualified applicants for vacancies in certain Trump properties.

Just three years after that, the Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corporation again for allegedly discriminating against black applicants by telling them apartments weren’t available.

 

He refused to condemn the white supremacists who are campaigning for him

Three times in a row on Sunday, Trump sidestepped opportunities to renounce white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke, who told his radio audience last week that voting for any candidate other than Trump is "really treason to your heritage."

When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if he would condemn Duke and say he didn’t want a vote from him or any other white supremacists, Trump claimed that he didn’t know anything about white supremacists or about Duke himself. When Tapper pressed him twice more, Trump said he couldn’t condemn a group he hadn’t yet researched.

By Monday, Trump was saying that in fact he does disavow Duke, and that the only reason he didn't do so on CNN was because of a "lousy earpiece." Video of the exchange, however, shows Trump responding quickly to Tapper's questions with no apparent difficulty in hearing.

It’s preposterous to think that Trump doesn't know about white supremacist groups or their sometimes violent support of him. Reports of neo-Nazi groups rallying around Trump go back as far as August.

His white supremacist fan club includes the Daily Stormer, a leading neo-Nazi news site; Richard Spencer, director of the National Policy Institute, which aims to promote the “heritage, identity, and future of European people”; Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance, a Virginia-based white nationalist magazine; Michael Hill, head of the League of the South, an Alabama-based white supremacist secessionist group; and Brad Griffin, a member of Hill’s League of the South and author of the popular white supremacist blog Hunter Wallace.

He questions whether President Obama was born in the United States

Long before calling Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists,” Trump was a leading proponent of “birtherism,” the racist conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is thus an illegitimate president. Trump claimed in 2011 to have sent people to Hawaii to investigate whether Obama was really born there. He insisted at the time that the researchers “cannot believe what they are finding.”

Obama ultimately got the better of Trump, releasing his long-form birth certificate and relentlessly mocking the real estate mogul about it at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that year.

But Trump continues to insinuate that the president was not born in the country.

“I don’t know where he was born,” Trump said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday. (Again, for the record: He was born in Hawaii.)

He treats racial groups as monoliths

Like many racial instigators, Trump often answers accusations of bigotry by loudly protesting that he actually loves the group in question. But that's just as uncomfortable to hear, because he's still treating all the members of the group -- all the individual human beings -- as essentially the same and interchangeable. Language is telling, here: Virtually every time Trump mentions a minority group, he uses the definite article the, as in “the Hispanics,” “the Muslims” and “the blacks.”

In that sense, Trump’s defensive explanations are of a piece with his slander of minorities. Both rely on essentializing racial and ethnic groups, blurring them into simple, monolithic entities, instead of acknowledging that there's as much variety among Muslims and Latinos and black people as there is among white people.

How did Trump respond to the outrage last year that followed his characterization of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists?

“I'll take jobs back from China, I'll take jobs back from Japan,” Trump said during his visit to the U.S.-Mexican border in July. “The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they're going to love Trump.”

"The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they're going to love Trump." Donald Trump, July 2015

How did Trump respond to critics of his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.?

“I'm doing good for the Muslims,” Trump told CNN in December. “Many Muslim friends of mine are in agreement with me. They say, ‘Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so brilliant and so fantastic.’”

Not long before he called for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the country, Trump was proclaiming his affection for “the Muslims,” disagreeing with rival candidate Ben Carson’s claim in September that being a Muslim should disqualify someone from running for president.

“I love the Muslims. I think they're great people,” Trump said, insisting that he would be willing to name a Muslim to his presidential cabinet.

How did Trump respond to the people who called him out for funding an investigation into whether Obama was born in the United States?

"I have a great relationship with the blacks,” Trump said in April 2011. “I've always had a great relationship with the blacks.”

He trashed Native Americans, too

In 1993, when Trump wanted to open a casino in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that would compete with one owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Nation, a local Native American tribe, he told the House subcommittee on Native American Affairs that "they don't look like Indians to me... They don't look like Indians to Indians."

Trump then elaborated on those remarks, which were unearthed last year in the Hartford Courant, by saying the mafia had infiltrated Indian casinos. 

 

He encouraged the mob justice that resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of the Central Park Five

In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York City-area newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty in New York and the expansion of police authority in response to the infamous case of a woman who was beaten and raped while jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park.

“They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” Trump wrote, referring to the Central Park attackers and other violent criminals. “I want to hate these murderers and I always will.”

The public outrage over the Central Park jogger rape, at a time when the city was struggling with high crime, led to the wrongful conviction of five teenagers of color known as the Central Park Five.

The men’s convictions were overturned in 2002, after they'd already spent years in prison, when DNA evidence showed they did not commit the crime. Today, their case is considered a cautionary tale about a politicized criminal justice process.

Trump, however, still thinks the men are guilty.

He condoned the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester

At a November campaign rally in Alabama, Trump supporters physically attacked an African-American protester after the man began chanting “Black lives matter.” Video of the incident shows the assailants kicking the man after he has already fallen to the ground.

The following day, Trump implied that the attackers were justified.

"Maybe [the protester] should have been roughed up," he mused. "It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing."

He called supporters who beat up a homeless Latino man “passionate”

Trump’s racial incitement has already inspired hate crimes. Two brothers arrested in Boston last summer for beating up a homeless Latino man cited Trump’s anti-immigrant message when explaining why they did it.  

“Donald Trump was right -- all these illegals need to be deported,” one of the men reportedly told police officers.

Trump did not even bother to distance himself from them. Instead, he suggested that the men were well-intentioned and had simply gotten carried away.

"I will say that people who are following me are very passionate,” Trump said. “They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”

 

He stereotyped Jews as good negotiators -- and political masterminds

When Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in December, he tried to relate to the crowd by invoking the stereotype of Jews as talented and cunning businesspeople.

"I'm a negotiator, like you folks," Trump told the crowd, touting his book The Art of the Deal.

"Is there anyone who doesn't renegotiate deals in this room?" Trump said. "Perhaps more than any room I've spoken to."

But that wasn’t even the most offensive thing Trump told his Jewish audience. He implied that he had little chance of earning the Jewish Republican group’s support, because his fealty could not be bought with campaign donations.

"You’re not going to support me, because I don’t want your money," he said. "You want to control your own politician."

Ironically, Trump has many close Jewish family members. His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism in 2009 before marrying the real estate mogul Jared Kushner. Trump and Kushner raise their two children in an observant Jewish home.

It's maybe not surprising that Trump has brought so much racial animus into the 2016 election cycle, given his family history. His father, Fred Trump, was the target of folk singer Woody Guthrie's lyrics after Guthrie lived for two years in a building owned by Trump pere: "I suppose / Old Man Trump knows / Just how much / Racial hate / He stirred up / In the bloodpot of human hearts."

And last fall, a news report from 1927 surfaced on the site Boing Boing, revealing that Fred Trump was arrested that year following a KKK riot in Queens. It's not clear exactly what the elder Trump was doing there or what role he may have played in the riot. Donald Trump, for his part, has categorically denied (except when he's ambiguously denied) that anything of the sort ever happened.

Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.



(REUTERS/Mike Segar)
Mitt Romney.

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday called on Republican candidates to release their tax returns — and speculated there could be a "bombshell" in those of frontrunner Donald Trump.

"We have good reason to believe that there's a bombshell in Donald Trump's taxes," Romney told Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Wednesday.

"What do you mean?" Cavuto asked Romney.

Romney said:

Well, I think there's something there. Either he's not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is, or he hasn't been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay. Or perhaps he hasn't been giving money to the vets or the disabled, like he's been telling us he's been doing.

Romney's statement came after Cavuto asked him why he had not yet made an endorsement in the Republican presidential race. As Trump has continued to march toward the nomination, Republican Party establishment members have rallied around the candidacy of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Romney said he'd like to see the taxes of each candidate.

"Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have not shown us their back taxes," Romney said. "This was an issue on my campaign."

Indeed, the Obama campaign and its Democratic allies in 2012 made Romney's taxes a signature issue. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously speculated that Romney didn't pay any taxes for a decade.

Romney eventually released two years' worth of returns that showed he had paid an effective rate of less than 15%. He called on the Republican candidates to do the same but zeroed in on Trump's supposed hesitance to do so.

"The reason I think there's a bombshell in there is that every time he's asked about his taxes, he dodges or delays and says, 'Well, we're working on it,'" Romney said of Trump.

Trump mocked Romney as a "tough guy" on Twitter later Wednesday.

"Mitt Romney, who totally blew an election that should have been won and whose tax returns made him look like a fool, is now playing tough guy," the mogul wrote.

Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday that he would release his returns "at some point, probably." He has also bristled at the notion, as Romney suggested, that any of his financial statements might show that he is not as wealthy as he has claimed.

He told Hewitt:

We'll be working on it. Everything is very much, you know, I gave my financials ahead of schedule, much ahead of schedule. I had a long time to give them, and I gave them immediately. And they were very complex, also, and very big, and they turned out to be extremely good, much better, actually, than people thought.

Romney, who has long been critical of Trump, emerged back into the public discussion over the 2016 presidential race on Wednesday when he was quoted discussing the year's political environment.

"We're just mad as hell and won't take it anymore," he said of the electorate on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

"The failure of current political leaders to actually tackle major challenges, or to try at least, or to go out with proposals," he added, speaking at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

 

 

‘…The publication this week listed a string of the Republican’s high-profile busts.

“Trump Steaks lacked sizzle, Trump Ice bottled water has dried up,” the editorial said. "Trump Airlines never turned a profit, and defaulted on its loans. You can’t order a Trump and tonic because nobody makes Trump Vodka anymore.

“Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for bankruptcy in 1999. And 2004. And 2009. And 2014. Trump University closed its doors in 2011, but is still facing lawsuits for ripping off students for packaging a trumped-up self-help seminar as an actual education.”

The Union-Leader has endorsed Chris Christie in the GOP New Hampshire primary. Trump responded at the time by arguing Christie cannot win the party’s nomination and that the state of New Jersey is currently “a disaster." …(more)’

 

 

THE MYTH AND THE REALITY OF DONALD TRUMP’S BUSINESS EMPIRE

By Ana Swanson February 29 at 9:12 AM

 

So many claims have been made about Donald Trump's business career during the presidential campaign — from Trump’s dramatic statements about his own success, to Marco Rubio’s fiery attacks during the Republican debate Thursday night. The questions remain: Is Trump really a titan of American business, a model of entrepreneurial success and self-invention? Or is he a reality TV star who has spent his career playing around with businesses built with inherited money, while ceaselessly courting celebrity along the way?

The truth appears to be somewhere in between. His business decisions over the years show that Trump is a mix of braggadocio, business failures, and real success.

Trump has dabbled in everything from real estate to steak, casinos and beauty queens, and he serves as an executive for more than 500 companies. Yet on top of his real business success, he has built an architecture of self-aggrandizement. “I play to people’s fantasies,” Trump wrote in his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal.” “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.”

Given all the “truthful hyperbole” out there about Trump, it’s hard to know what to believe. Here are five of the most important things to know about Trump’s business career.

1) He has a talent for real estate, but that hasn’t always translated well to other industries.

 

Trump has forged a successful real estate career over 45 years, profiting from flagship buildings like the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the Trump Tower Chicago, and Mar-a-Lago, a private club in Palm Beach, Fla. His Trump Organization owns a portfolio of buildings, hotels and golf courses around the world.

Yet his real estate business isn’t exactly the dominant force he suggests. Despite a national reputation as a New York property mogul, Trump doesn’t make it into top 10 lists of the city’s real estate players.

While his dealings in hotels and golf courses around the world appear to be success — his companies are privately held, so details are scarce — forays into casinos, airlines, professional football and other industries have ended badly.

Trump's gamble: A failed bet in Atlantic City

In 1990, Donald Trump opened the largest and most lavish casino-hotel complex in Atlantic City. Unlike any other casino in America, the Trump Taj Mahal was expected to break every record in the books. But just several months later, it all fell apart. (Alice Li/The Washington Post)

His casino business, which produced the four bankruptcies that political opponents often hammer him about, is probably his most infamous flop. Though Trump paints these Chapter 11 bankruptcies as if they were a good deal, saying they allowed him to get out of a failing Atlantic City business at a strategic time, the 1991 bankruptcy proceedings brought him close to losing much of his personal fortune. As Drew Harwell and Jacob Bogage wrote for the Post, Trump had to put millions of dollars of his own money into struggling companies, sold his yacht and his airline, gave up substantial ownership stakes and decision making roles, and even agreed to limits on his own personal spending.

Today, Trump describes these bankruptcies as if no one was hurt in the process, except high rollers and sharks. He says that he has started hundreds of companies, but only used bankruptcy proceedings four times. And he claims that Atlantic City has been a losing proposition for most entrepreneurs. "Almost every hotel in Atlantic City has either been in bankruptcy or will be in bankruptcy," Trump said during the third Republican debate.

Michael d’Antonio, who wrote a recent biography of Trump, says that is an incomplete assessment.

“But there were many people who weren’t wealthy who lost money on those bankruptcies,” he said. “Anyone who invested in a bond fund or who bought individual securities that were linked to his casinos lost money.”

According to the New York Times, Wall Street banks remain hesitant to deal with Trump, due to the previous bankruptcies and his litigious nature. Federal Election Commission disclosures have shown that 15 companies associated with Trump owe more than $270 million to banks. Trump responds to these critiques by saying that he doesn't use Wall Street because he doesn't need the money — he's rich enough to do his own financing.

Another long and strange story is Trump’s involvement with professional football in the 1980s. In 1984, Trump bought the New Jersey Generals, a team in the nascent and briefly-lived United States Football League, which played its games in the spring, after the Super Bowl.

In New York Times writer Joe Nocera’s account, Trump’s aim was in large part to have the league acquired by the National Football League, in the same way that the American Football League merged with the NFL in 1966. Trump led a charge to move the league's games from the spring to the fall, when they would go head-to-head with the NFL. Instead of merging with the NFL, the USFL simply flopped.

“I think he’s very good at real estate, I don’t think he’s very good at other things,” says biographer D'Antonio. “He tried to run an airline and failed at that. He tried to run casinos and failed four times. That’s not evidence of brilliance when it comes to operating a complex business.”

Trump has acknowledged a tendency to get bored easily with business ventures. “The same assets that excite me in the chase, often, once they are acquired, leave me bored,” Trump wrote in one of his books. “For me, you see, the important thing is the getting, not the having.”

2) Trump is not a self-made man.

 

One of Marco Rubio’s top zingers in the debate last week was that if Trump hadn’t gotten an inheritance of $200 million from his father, he’d be “selling watches” in the streets of Manhattan. Rubio got the figures about Trump’s inheritance wrong — $200 million is actually what Trump’s dad’s fortune was estimated at in the 1970s, not Trump’s inheritance — but Trump clearly benefited from the wealth and connections of his father, Fred Trump.

One of the richest people in America in the 1970s, Fred Trump built a real estate empire developing apartments for middle-class families in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island after World War II. After the younger Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1968, he joined his dad’s firm and, in 1971, took over the business. He built on his dad’s success, deploying leveraged capital on risky ventures that paid off: the Grand Hyatt Hotel on East 42nd Street, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and Trump Plaza on 61st and Third Avenue.

What Trump benefited most from initially was his dad’s credit-worthiness, says D’Antonio. “When he wanted to go into business on his own, his father’s credit was available to him, and that was worth tens of millions of dollars.”

Still, there are questions over how much wealth Trump created. In the debate last week, Trump claimed that he took a loan of $1 million from his father and he turned it into a fortune of $10 billion. But The Post's fact checkers say that neither claim is quite right.

The $1 million loan doesn’t include any of the benefits Trump received from his family’s connections and joining his father’s real estate business after he graduated from college, and it doesn’t count an estimated $40 million inheritance in 1974. The $10 billion figure, which is what Trump claims as his current net worth, is also disputed. Bloomberg News has estimated Trump's net worth at only $2.9 billion, while Forbes put it at $4.1 billion. Since Trump’s businesses aren’t public, the true figure isn’t clear.

As my colleague Max Ehrenfreund has argued, even if Trump has many billions of dollars, there's an open question over whether that reflects true business acumen.

Business Week estimated Trump’s net worth at $100 million in 1978. If Trump had merely put that money in an index fund based on the Standard & Poor's 500 index — the kind many Americans use to save for retirement — he would be worth $6 billion today.

3) Everything Trump touches turns to "Trump." 

 

Trump has a kind of Midas touch: Many of the businesses he comes in contact with end up with his last name on them, often in large, gilded capital letters. Of the 515 companies that Trump has a part in running, 268 bear his last name, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission.

D’Antonio says the strategy of branding and franchising is unusual for a businessperson, and more reminiscent of a professional athlete. “Donald is brilliant about turning himself into a walking brand, and he seized that opportunity pretty early,” he says.

Trump’s penchant for deploying his name has been a successful marketing strategy, but it also appears to satisfy a deeper desire for fame and accomplishment.

In addition to the Trump hotels and casinos, there are Trump-branded steaks (developed for the Sharper Image catalogue, but still served in Trump hotel restaurants), a Trump board game, the now-defunct Trump magazine and Trump Airlines, and a line of shirts and ties called the Donald J. Trump Signature Collection. Trump has put his name on water, Israeli energy drinks, cologne, Virginian wine, vodka, furniture – “almost anything that might be sold as high quality, high cost, and high-class,” D'Antonio writes.

The Trump brand family also includes the strange saga of Trump University, which has been the subject of intense criticism by his political rivals. As the Post’s Emma Brown wrote in September, Trump University was not a university at all, but a series of motivational workshops and real estate industry tips that were held in hotel ballrooms beginning in 2004.

Students paid several thousand dollars for a three-day course, and up to $35,000 for more extensive mentoring and workshop packages. Some were under the impression that they would be mentored by Trump himself, but in the end the closest they got was a cardboard cutout of Trump they could take a picture with.

What is Trump University?

Marco Rubio accused Donald Trump of starting a "fake university" at the Feb. 25 GOP debate in Houston. Here's what you need to know about Trump University. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Trump still faces lawsuits from the venture, including a $40 million suit from the New York attorney general for defrauding students and operating an unlicensed university.

Trump responded to comments about Trump University in Thursday's debate by calling the lawsuits "nonsense."

"It's something I could have settled many times. I could settle it right now for very little money, but I don't want to do it out of principle," he said. "The people that took the course all signed -- most -- many -- many signed report cards saying it was fantastic, it was wonderful, it was beautiful."

4) Trump’s record includes some unsavory episodes.

 

While Trump was never accused of doing anything illegal, he worked extensively with companies controlled by the mafia on properties in New York and Atlantic City, including Trump Tower and Trump Plaza.

Some would say that was the only way to develop property in New York in the 1970s and 1980s – the mob controlled many parts of the city’s construction industry, including concrete, labor unions and trash disposal. Still, the extent of Trump's involvement is certainly unique. “No serious presidential candidate has ever had Trump’s depth of documented business relationships with mob-controlled entities,” The Post’s Robert O’Hara Jr. wrote.

Trump has said that he did not know these companies' mafia connections, adding that they were "unbelievably good contractors in terms of doing the work."

As Republican opponents have pointed out, Trump’s businesses may have hired undocumented and guest workers — allegations that now prove awkward for a presidential candidate running on an anti-immigration platform.

Construction workers at Trump’s new D.C. hotel told The Washington Post that some workers were undocumented, while the New York Times reported that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach rejected hundreds of applications from Americans only to bring in hundreds of Romanian guest workers.

As Rubio recounted in the debate Thursday night, Trump also faced a long-running lawsuit over the use of undocumented workers at the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The building was allegedly built by undocumented Polish workers who were paid $5 an hour or less, when they were paid at all. The case dragged on for decades. The judged ruled that Trump knew that Polish workers were working off the books and were paid illegally and sub-standardly. Trump appealed, and the case was ultimately settled in 1999.

There were other strange incidents. The lawyer who represented the Polish workers claimed that someone named "John Baron" had called to threaten him with a lawsuit if he kept causing trouble, as Michael Daly writes for The Daily Beast. Trump denied making the call, but he used the pseudonym John Baron throughout his career. He suggested the name “John Barron” for the main character in a never-produced TV show called “The Tower” that was loosely based on Trump’s life, and he and Melania later named their son Barron.

When Rubio brought up the Polish workers in Thursday's debate, Trump responded by saying he had hired tens of thousands of people in his lifetime, and that, at the time, "the laws were totally different. That was a whole different world."

5) Trump's genius is building a brand, even a mythology.

 

In the 1980s, Donald Trump was short on cash but eager to get Holiday Inn involved in a new casino project in Atlantic City. The construction wasn’t far along, but the Holiday Inn executives were coming to town, and Trump wanted to impress them. So he ordered a construction crew to dig up piles of dirt and drive them around on the site as energetically as possible. When the Holiday Inn executives arrived, they were impressed and agreed to invest, Trump recalls in “The Art of the Deal.”

Trump's greatest talent turns out to be not building businesses, but constructing a larger-than-life public figure. D’Antonio says he thinks Trump has worked to create a strong brand mostly because his ego "needed the attention." However, Trump also figured out how to make the attention profitable as well.

Trump's personal brand got a huge boost from “The Apprentice,” the reality TV show in which Trump came off as a straight-talking truth-teller – “a decider who insisted on standards in a country that had somehow slipped into handing out trophies just for showing up,” as The Post’s Mark Fisher writes. In a recent book, Trump wrote that he didn’t do the show for money, but rather because of the “brand presence.”

Through his career, Trump has had a knack for converting his outrageousness into profit. Now, says D’Antonio, Trump is trying to convert it into votes.

 

Trump captures the nation’s attention on the campaign trail

 

You might also like: 

The uniquely American appeal of Donald Trump’s favorite insult

How to change someone’s mind, according to science

Your reaction to this confusing headline reveals more about you than you know

 

 

 

 

Romney: 'Good Reason To Believe That There's a Bombshell In Donald Trump's Taxes' Breitbart News

IT’S TIME FOR AN ANTI-TRUMP MANHATTAN PROJECT BY CHARLES C. W. COOKE Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com

 

Republican Race Puts Trump, Paul Ryan on Collision Course...

RUBIO: 'You Don't Win Nomination By How Many States You Win'...

 

 

BUST: Meltdown pushes 359 stocks under $1...

 

Cat treks from Wisconsin to Florida...

 

 

Mitt Romney suggests there's a "bombshell" in Donald Trump's taxes CBS News

Romney: 'Good Reason To Believe That There's a Bombshell In Donald Trump's Taxes' Breitbart News

IT’S TIME FOR AN ANTI-TRUMP MANHATTAN PROJECT BY CHARLES C. W. COOKE Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com

 

Republican Race Puts Trump, Paul Ryan on Collision Course...

RUBIO: 'You Don't Win Nomination By How Many States You Win'...

 

 

Michael Snyder: http://albertpeia.com/michaelsnyderEconomicCollapseEndAmericanDream22616.htm

Former Mexican president says he will not pay for Donald Trump's 'f—— wall'  Washington Post Former Mexican president Vicente Fox is fiercely opposed to his country paying for the massive wall that Donald Trump wants to build on the border between their two countries, saying in an interview that Trump is "a crazy guy" and "a false prophet" who ...

Related  Donald Trump » Vicente Fox »

2 Ex-Presidents of Mexico Say No Way Country Is Paying for Donald Trump's Wall New York Times

Former Mexican President to Trump: 'I'm Not Going to Pay for That F------ Wall' ABC News

Highly Cited: Former Mexican President Vicente Fox to Trump: We're "Not Paying For That F***ing Wall" RealClearPolitics

 

In our 693rd issue:

It's Not Just About Apple. It's About All of Us.

In most issues of EFFector, we give an overview of all the work we’re doing at EFF right now. This week, we present a deep dive on the FBI’s fight with Apple over its customers’ privacy.

A U.S. federal magistrate judge has ordered Apple to undermine the security of an iPhone that was used by one of the perpetrators of December’s San Bernardino shootings. If carried out, the order would compromise the security of every Apple customer in the world. Fortunately, Apple is fighting back and standing up for its users, and EFF is filing an amicus brief in support of Apple’s position.

The government is doing more than simply ask for Apple’s assistance. For the first time ever, the government is telling Apple to write brand new code that eliminates the security features of its own products—features that benefit everyone who uses Apple products or even communicates with iOS users. Essentially, the government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone. And once that master key is created, we’re certain that both our government and others will ask for it again and again.

There’s been a lot of confusion about what exactly the FBI is asking Apple for. In short, the FBI wants Apple to do three things:

The FBI’s goal is to guess Syed Rizwan Farook’s passcode to unlock his phone. If it just tries entering passcodes, though, it might erase the device’s keys, at which point the data may never be recoverable. Hence, it’s telling Apple to write special software to allow unlimited guesses. The FBI claims that it has the right to make this request under the 1789 All Writs Act, a claim that many legal experts have questioned.

The problem with the FBI’s request is twofold. First, the risk of this piece of software getting into unauthorized hands is very high, and the damage that it could do is obvious.

Second, writing this code would probably encourage more government requests—potentially from other governments around the world. Even if you trust the U.S. government, once this master key is created, governments you don’t trust will surely demand that Apple undermine the security of their citizens as well.

Speak Out

Last year, thousands of you signed a petition urging President Obama to speak out for uncompromised security. The President has not given a real response, but the need to defend encryption is more urgent than ever.

Fight for the Future has organized a series of rallies in many major cities across the country. There will be rallies at most Apple Stores today at 5:30 pm local time.

This case is not about FBI vs. Apple. It's about every consumer’s right to use secure technologies, and every technology company’s right to protect its customers’ privacy. Join us.

miniLinks

PBS: Judge's order to Apple over attacker phone encryption unlocks privacy concerns

“We know who the shooters were. We know who they were talking to. The FBI already has the metadata. They chose this case because they want precedent that they can order a company to design a particular feature at their whim.” EFF’s Nate Cardozo explains why the FBI’s order has very little to do with Farook’s phone and everything to do with setting a new precedent.

New York Times: An Unprecedented Order That Puts Us All at Risk

There is no such thing as a master key that only the good guys can use. EFF attorney Sophia Cope shows how carrying out the FBI’s order could open iPhone users to large-scale threats, both from criminals and from authoritarian world governments.

PBS Frontline: Who's Right In Apple's Fight with the FBI?

“Privacy nihilism is seductive, but deeply misguided. Privacy is not dead, and only those who wish to kill it claim otherwise.” EFF attorney Nate Cardozo debates James Andrew Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explaining why it’s so important that Apple fight the FBI order.

Supported by Donors

Our members make it possible for EFF to bring legal and technological expertise into crucial battles about online rights. Whether defending free speech online or challenging unconstitutional surveillance, your participation makes a difference. Every donation gives technology users who value freedom online a stronger voice and more formidable advocate.

If you aren't already, please consider becoming an EFF member today.

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2-22-16  Harvard professor compares Donald Trump's rise to Hitler's

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican

2-15-16 Influential and Authoritative National Review dumps trump

http://albertpeia.com/conservativesagainsttrump.htm

1-26-16: t_rump: ‘…my supporters are smart and loyal…I could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone and they’d still support me…my poll numbers wouldn’t change’… {When I first heard this sick, outlandish, psychopathic quote I was reluctant to comment upon/post it thinking it must be slickly out of context…it’s not!…as a matter of fact, it’s even worse in context…he meant it!…to be sure, he rivals hitler with his similarly sick devotees buying into his ‘psychopathy’…(so over the top that even the presence of the full moon can’t justify trump’s dangerous lunacy-don’t forget, nuclear weapons exacerbate a globally perilous and precarious doomsday scenario…(how embarrassing for trump supporters, backers, apologists and particularly, america! ….. smart … supporters?… How ‘bout deaf, dumb, and blind … like those who ignored what balanced, intelligent people warned of psychopath hitler, failed to understand the broad/far-reaching implications of hitler’s modus operandi, and failed to see the hitlerian insanity in plain sight)}

 

Politics

 

Harvard professor compares Donald Trump's rise to Hitler's

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican presidential candidate to Adolf Hitler seizing power in Germany.

"Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany," professor and political theorist Danielle Allen wrote.

"Watching Donald Trump's rise, I now understand," she added.

She then went on to explain "how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country." She urged Trump's critics not to stand by passively as he gains support among Republican primary voters.

Allen wrote:

Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him. Similarly, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is unacceptable, but they too, thus far, have been unable to coordinate a solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across our ideological divides.

Hitler rose to power on a nationalist message. He told the German people that they were exceptional and played on feelings of disenfranchisement.

Allen also called for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to drop out of the race for the so that their support could consolidate behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who she argued could pose a viable threat to Trump's candidacy.

Read the full Washington Post editorial here >

Trump captures the nation’s attention on the campaign trail
The Republican presidential candidate focuses on the Super Tuesday state primaries after a win in South Carolina.

By Danielle Allen February 21

Danielle Allen is a political theorist at Harvard University and a contributing columnist for The Post.

Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump’s rise, I now understand. Leave aside whether a direct comparison of Trump to Hitler is accurate. That is not my point. My point rather is about how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.

To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Nazism, I have generally relied on the German-Jewish émigré philosopher Hannah Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow people can understand themselves as “just doing their job,” yet act as cogs in the wheel of a murderous machine. Arendt also offered a second answer in a small but powerful book called “Men in Dark Times.” In this book, she described all those who thought that Hitler’s rise was a terrible thing but chose “internal exile,” or staying invisible and out of the way as their strategy for coping with the situation. They knew evil was evil, but they too facilitated it, by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of hopelessness.

[George Will: Trump relishes wrecking the GOP]

One can see both of these phenomena unfolding now. The first shows itself, for instance, when journalists cover every crude and cruel thing that comes out of Trump’s mouth and thereby help acculturate all of us to what we are hearing. Are they not just doing their jobs, they will ask, in covering the Republican front-runner? Have we not already been acculturated by 30 years of popular culture to offensive and inciting comments? Yes, both of these things are true. But that doesn’t mean journalists ought to be Trump’s megaphone. Perhaps we should just shut the lights out on offensiveness; turn off the mic when someone tries to shout down others; reestablish standards for what counts as a worthwhile contribution to the public debate. That will seem counter to journalistic norms, yes, but why not let Trump pay for his own ads when he wants to broadcast foul and incendiary ideas? He’ll still have plenty of access to freedom of expression. It is time to draw a bright line.

How Donald Trump won the South Carolina GOP primary, in 60 seconds

Donald Trump won the Feb. 20 South Carolina GOP primary. Here's how. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

One spots the second experience in any number of water-cooler conversations or dinner-party dialogues. “Yes, yes, it is terrible. Can you believe it? Have you seen anything like it? Has America come to this?” “Agreed, agreed.” But when someone asks what is to be done, silence falls. Very many of us, too many of us, are starting to contemplate accepting internal exile. Or we joke about moving to Canada more seriously than usually.

But over the course of the past few months, I’ve learned something else that goes beyond Arendt’s ideas about the banality of evil and feelings of impotence in the face of danger.

[Five myths Donald Trump tells about Donald Trump]

Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him. Similarly, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is unacceptable, but they too, thus far, have been unable to coordinate a solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across our ideological divides.

The only way to stop him, then, is to achieve just that kind of coordination across party lines and across divisions within parties. We have reached that moment of truth.

Republicans, you cannot count on the Democrats to stop Trump. I believe that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, and I intend to vote for her, but it is also the case that she is a candidate with significant weaknesses, as your party knows quite well. The result of a head-to-head contest between Clinton and Trump would be unpredictable. Trump has to be blocked in your primary.

Jeb Bush has done the right thing by dropping out, just as he did the right thing by being the first, alongside Rand Paul, to challenge Trump. The time has come, John Kasich and Ben Carson, to leave the race as well. You both express a powerful commitment to the good of your country and to its founding ideals. If you care about the future of this republic, it is time to endorse Marco Rubio. Kasich, there’s a little wind in your sails, but it’s not enough. Your country is calling you. Do the right thing.

Ted Cruz is, I believe, pulling votes away from Trump, and for that reason is useful in the race. But, Mr. Cruz, you are drawing too close to Trump’s politics. You too should change course.

Democrats, your leading candidate is too weak to count on as a firewall. She might be able to pull off a general election victory against Trump, but then again she might not. Too much is uncertain this year. You, too, need to help the Republicans beat Trump; this is no moment for standing by passively. If your deadline for changing your party affiliation has not yet come, re-register and vote for Rubio, even if, like me, you cannot stomach his opposition to marriage equality. I too would prefer Kasich as the Republican nominee, but pursuing that goal will only make it more likely that Trump takes the nomination. The republic cannot afford that.

[Catherine Rampell: Donald Trump thinks you’re stupid. Yes, you.]

Finally, to all of you Republicans who have already dropped out, one more, great act of public service awaits you. As candidates, you pledged to support whomever the Republican party nominated. It’s time to revoke your pledge. Be bold, stand up and shout that you will not support Trump if he is your party’s nominee. Do it together. Hold one big mother of a news conference. Endorse Rubio, together. It is time to draw a bright line, and you are the ones on whom this burden falls. No one else can do it.

Marco Rubio, this is also your moment to draw a bright line. You too ought to rescind your pledge to support the party’s nominee if it is Trump.

Donald Trump has no respect for the basic rights that are the foundation of constitutional democracy, nor for the requirements of decency necessary to sustain democratic citizenship. Nor can any democracy survive without an expectation that the people require reasonable arguments that bring the truth to light, and Trump has nothing but contempt for our intelligence.

We, the people, need to find somewhere, buried in the recesses of our fading memories, the capacity to make common cause against this formidable threat to our equally shared liberties. The time is now.

Read more:

Ruth Marcus: Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan

Anne Applebaum: Donald Trump’s campaign of conspiracy theories

Michael Gerson: Donald Trump and the politics of the middle finger

 

NOW WATCH: ‘Turn off the lights!’ — watch Trump turn a lighting outage into a bizarre political talking point


More From Business Insider

 

Influential and Authoritative National Review dumps trump

http://albertpeia.com/conservativesagainsttrump.htm

 

NH paper on Trump: 'Losing is what he does’   By Mark Hensch

New Hampshire’s largest newspaper reignited its feud with Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump late Thursday, criticizing his “decades of failure” in business.

“If you challenged Donald Trump to a game of ‘Trump: The Game,’ he’d lose,” the New Hampshire Union-Leader editorial quipped.“Losing is what he does,” it said.

 "Trump promises that if he were president, we would win so much, we’d get bored and ask him to lose. And Trump has been losing for decades.

“After inheriting his father’s real estate empire, Trump has used crony capitalism and eminent domain to increase it. But Trump’s attempts to set up his own businesses have been striking failures.”

The scathing editorial comes just six days before New Hampshire’s primaries on Tuesday. Trump, who is polling well ahead of the rest of the GOP field in the state, is hoping for a rebound after placing second in the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.

The outspoken billionaire has repeatedly battled the Union-Leader over its coverage of him this election cycle.

He mocked the paper as “dying” under the leadership of publisher Joe McQuaid after the editorial board sharply criticized Trump’s campaign late last year. Trump also took credit when the Union-Leader was cut as a debate co-host.

The publication this week listed a string of the Republican’s high-profile busts.

“Trump Steaks lacked sizzle, Trump Ice bottled water has dried up,” the editorial said. "Trump Airlines never turned a profit, and defaulted on its loans. You can’t order a Trump and tonic because nobody makes Trump Vodka anymore.

“Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for bankruptcy in 1999. And 2004. And 2009. And 2014. Trump University closed its doors in 2011, but is still facing lawsuits for ripping off students for packaging a trumped-up self-help seminar as an actual education.”

The Union-Leader has endorsed Chris Christie in the GOP New Hampshire primary. Trump responded at the time by arguing Christie cannot win the party’s nomination and that the state of New Jersey is currently “a disaster."

Politics

 

Why Donald Trump Can’t Win The White House

Donald Trump is the candidate of the white working class. His popularity with this cohort was recognized early in his candidacy. The preponderance of commentary on the Trump phenomenon since then, whether favorable to the tumescent real-estate mogul and reality television star or not, has proceeded from this assumption.

These analyses affirm Trump’s allure to white, working-class voters as central to his candidacy. It is the pillar on which his dominant standing in the polls rests. If Trump wins the Republican nomination, it will be through their support.

Yet these analyses, revealing as they are, overlook a salient fact. The verdict of working-class voters will not be the only one rendered on Trump, or the most important one. However popular Trump may be with the working class, he is as unpopular with voters who have graduated from college, a group without whose backing the GOP has no shot at regaining the White House.

Trump does respectably among college-educated Republicans. In Quinnipiac University’s most recent poll of the Republican race, Trump received the support of 30 percent of respondents who had a college degree, more than any other Republican. This was an improvement from earlier this month, when Trump trailed Marco Rubio in this demographic. But if three-tenths of college-educated Republicans back Trump, then seven-tenths of them don’t. To put it another way: the vast majority of Republicans with college degrees oppose Donald Trump.

Let’s Compare Donald Trump to Everyone Else

Trump does have a positive favorability score among college Republicans of 55 to 37 percent. Yet his net rating is the lowest of any GOP candidate. Ted Cruz (61 to 27 percent), Marco Rubio (75 to 15 percent), and John Kasich (62 to 9 percent) all best Trump on this measure.

 

Source: Quinnipiac University Poll, 17 February 2016.

Trump also does worst on the question of which candidate “you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president.” Twenty-eight percent of all Republican voters would refuse to back him, which improves to 26 percent when only Republican college graduates are considered.

Trump has a hard ceiling with the latter group that manifests in survey after survey. College graduates constituted 54 percent of Republican turnout in the New Hampshire primary. Trump won this group with 29 percent of the vote. This is a good number. But it also means the other 71 percent went for Trump’s rivals.

In Iowa, Trump fared worse. College graduates made up 51 percent of the GOP caucus electorate. Trump could do no better than third, winning 21 percent of college-educated Iowa Republicans. Both Rubio (28 percent) and Cruz (25 percent) bested him in this crucial demographic. All told, fourth-fifths of Iowa Republicans who graduated college opposed Trump. As Tim Alberta notes in his exegesis of the exit polls from the first two nominating contests, these results suggest “the formation of an anti-Trump coalition among college-educated Republicans.” Trump’s “weak link,” as Ron Brownstein calls it, followed him to South Carolina, where Rubio beat Trump 27 to 25 percent among voters with at least a four-year degree.

There is no reason to believe Trump’s fortunes with college-educated Republican voters will improve—and this is just Republicans. With college-educated voters as a whole, Trump is poison. Pure, lethal poison.

 

The preceding chart, also drawn from Quinnipiac’s latest polling, is illuminating. For one thing, it shows that Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, is 13 points underwater with college-educated voters. Yet she is a homecoming queen compared to Trump, who is an unfathomable 37 points in arrears with college-educated voters. Cruz is also anathema to college graduates. They even look askance at Rubio now, while earlier this month they were enamored of him. Only Bernie Sanders gets positive marks from this group.

A candidate’s standing with college graduates is significant because it correlates with how well he or she performs on head-to-head ballot tests against other candidates. Here the news is no better for Trump. He would get crushed among college voters, and consequently lose the election.

 

This chart reveals just how poorly Trump would do with college graduates against Hillary Clinton. While he loses to Clinton by one point overall, his deficit soars to 15 points with college graduates. This is a gap Trump’s vaunted working-class support can’t fill. According to Quinnipiac, he only leads by five points with voters who don’t have college degrees, 45 to 40 percent.

Cruz, not usually categorized as a champion of the working class, does better with them against Clinton than Trump does. The Texas senator gets 48 percent of working-class voters to 39 percent for the former secretary of state. His deficit among college voters is only 13 points (52 to 39 percent), though, so he leads Clinton 46 to 43 percent. Rubio polls best against Clinton with both groups, trailing 40 to 46 percent with college voters and leading 50 to 37 percent with non-college voters. This translates to a 48 to 41 percent lead for the Florida senator overall.

College-Educated People Vote More

The “diploma divide” among Republican voters was a key factor in the 2012 primary, and it has recurred in 2016. In 2012, college-educated Republicans lined up behind Romney, while those without degrees fragmented among several candidates. But in 2016, as David Wasserman noted in December, it is college-educated Republicans who have divided their support while those without degrees have coalesced behind Trump. Consequently, Trump leads the GOP field because even though he gets only a quarter of Republicans who graduated from college, he gets two-fifths of those who didn’t.

The problem for Trump (or any candidate) is that winning non-college graduates while losing degree holders does not a winning coalition make.

The problem for Trump (or any candidate) is that winning non-college graduates while losing degree holders does not a winning coalition make. All it does is guarantee defeat. Per the 2012 exit polls, Romney won college graduates 51 to 47 percent over President Obama. It was the only educational cohort Romney won on his way to a four-point loss.

Trump supporters might counter that he would make up for it by winning overwhelming support from working-class voters. This is wrong for two reasons. The first reason is that, as seen in the Quinnipiac poll, Trump only breaks even with non-college graduates in the general election. The second reason is that there simply aren’t enough working-class voters to make up for the catastrophic losses among college-educated voters Trump is destined to incur.

Voting propensity is strongly correlated with educational attainment. The more educated one is, the more likely one is to vote. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the two most reliable voting groups in the United States are voters with bachelor’s degrees and those with post-graduate degrees. The following chart, drawn from the 2012 election review by the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, shows that these two groups turned out at rates of 75 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Even those who attended but did not finish college had a voting rate higher than 60 percent. The rate for high school graduates was just over 50 percent, and it declined sharply for those who did not finish high school.

 

There is simply no way a candidate can win a presidential election now by losing the biggest turnout group by ten or more points, as polls consistently show Trump doing. College graduates cannot stand Trump, and this surely is no small factor in him having the highest negative rating of any presidential candidate Gallup has ever tested. Sixty percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump. That kind of radioactivity usually requires a Geiger counter to measure.

College graduates vote more, and there are more of them who vote. According to the 2012 exit polls, 47 percent of voters had at least a four-year degree. Another 29 percent spent at least some time enrolled on campus. That adds up to 76 percent. The overlap is not perfect, but if working-class voters are defined as voters with no more than a high school education, then Trump’s hopes rest on taking larger and larger bites from a cherry.

Donald Trump’s Missing White Voters

Even the pit has been consumed. Psephologists and pundits have fixated on “the mystery of the missing white voters” ever since Sean Trende noticed their disappearance after the 2012 election. In a recent series on the Trump phenomenon, Trende posits that the candidate most likely to appeal to these missing voters is Trump, as they were, for the most part, rural blue-collar whites with an affinity for populism who in another age voted for Ross Perot.

There simply aren’t enough working-class voters to make up for Trump’s catastrophic losses among college-educated voters.

As Nate Cohn puts it, Trump’s base consists of irregularly voting nominal Democrats from the industrial north, the South, and Appalachia. The problem, Trende writes, is that there simply aren’t enough of them to win even if you hold everything else constant. The alternatives are either to win more non-white support or increase the GOP’s already staggering edge with white voters.

There’s the rub. Trump could theoretically get more non-white voters (perhaps by appealing to black voters more than Romney did). Or, more plausibly, he could boost turnout among blue-collar whites with his stances against free trade and immigration. But he would do so almost certainly at the expense of support from white-collar voters.

Liam Donovan framed the dilemma well in a recent article in National Review: “Trump can run up the popular-vote score all he wants riding white-working-class resentment. It won’t help him when he gets buried in swing counties such as Fairfax, Hamilton, Hillsborough, and Arapahoe. Sure, he can target the Rust Belt, but big margins in Western Pennsylvania or the Upper Peninsula won’t matter if he can’t play in Bucks or Oakland Counties.”

Trump won’t play in Bucks County. He won’t for reasons Trende articulates in the final part of his excellent series. He argues that Trump is the avatar of what he labels “cultural traditionalism.” Cultural traditionalists share certain attitudes “about the importance of family, religion, achievement, intellectual advancement, diversity (at least within categories deemed important by elites), patriotism, and nationalism” distinct from, and often diametrically opposed to, those of their counterparts, the “cultural cosmopolitans.”

In voting terms, there are more cultural cosmopolitans than there are cultural traditionalists, and by a considerable margin.

The GOP establishment is made up for the most part of cultural cosmopolitans, while many of its voters are cultural traditionalists. Out of this untenable tension sprang Trump. The cultural traditionalists love him not least because he is a giant middle finger to the cosmopolitans.

The nation’s metropolitan areas and suburbs, though, are populated by cultural cosmopolitans, affluent, college-educated professionals who cringe whenever Trump promises to ban Muslims or deport every illegal immigrant in the country. As we have already seen, there are, at least in voting terms, more cultural cosmopolitans than there are cultural traditionalists, and by a considerable margin. As we have also seen, they loathe Donald Trump. They are never going to vote for someone who so grievously offends their sensibilities.

Evidence Trump Haters Won’t Switch Sides

A Trump backer might rejoin that I am merely speculating that college-educated Republicans would not flock to Trump if he became the nominee. Supporters of one candidate during a primary often say they won’t support his opponent but rally around the party flag for the general election. This is a fair point. It is hard to prove a negative, especially one that hasn’t happened yet. There is some evidence, however, to indicate Trump may not benefit from this normal pattern.

On Election Day, Akin lost college graduates 50 to 44 percent, a seven-point swing.

There are few analogues to Trump in recent years. One who resembled the magnate, at least in his capacity for intemperate remarks, was Todd Akin. In the last poll conducted before he devoured his leg, Akin led his 2012 Missouri Senate race against incumbent Claire McCaskill by 11 points. This included a one-point advantage with college graduates, 46 to 45 percent. Yet on Election Day, Akin lost college graduates 50 to 44 percent, a seven-point swing. Moreover, 15 percent of Republican voters defected and voted for McCaskill.

Another GOP Senate candidate who made foolish remarks about abortion in 2012 was Richard Mourdock of Indiana. He managed to win college-educated voters, but like Akin he bled considerable Republican support: 14 percent of Hoosier Republicans backed Democrat Joe Donnelly, who won.

In 2010, Sharron Angle, the controversial GOP Senate nominee in Nevada, lost 11 percent of Republicans to Harry Reid. Her Colorado counterpart, Ken Buck, saw 10 percent of Republicans shift to Michael Bennett.

Most instructive, perhaps, is the 2008 presidential election, which saw Barack Obama win 9 percent of Republicans and an astounding 20 percent of self-described conservatives. Given the aspirational qualities of Obama’s candidacy, we should not be surprised he had so much cross-ballot appeal. Nine or 10 percent is not much in a decisive contest like his first presidential campaign, but in a close election or a swing state it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Donald Trump Means the End of the Republican Party

Trump doesn’t make inflammatory comments about rape or abortion. That’s because he’s too busy making them about everything else: immigration, foreign policy, economics, his rivals, journalists, you name it. His peanut gallery roars, but the rest of the country is unimpressed. A Trump-inspired descent into white identity politics would be a cataclysm for the GOP because it would alienate the very voters it needs if it wants the White House back. It must get at least a few voters for whom cultural affinity outweighs partisan affiliation. There is no way to win without them. Trump’s campaign, on the other hand, depends on pursuing voters who don’t exist at the cost of those who do.

Trump’s campaign depends on pursuing voters who don’t exist at the cost of those who do.

It is well and good to appeal to the working class. It behooves the GOP to do so. There is great merit in criticizing the GOP and its leadership and policy cadres, which often seem to care about little more than hunting such mythical beasts as the flat tax while pretending to pay lip service to any number of causes dear to its rank and file. I have myself avowed that the GOP establishment (and donor class) deserve “incineration.” But Trump should not be the instrument of vengeance. For that sword, once drawn, will be sheathed only with difficulty.

By now you have surely begun to suspect that I oppose Trump. You’re right. I oppose him on philosophical and ideological grounds. But I also oppose him for practical reasons. Nominate Trump, and the GOP would lose college-educated voters for at least a generation, and possibly forever. With them would go the prospect of ever again winning states like Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. So, without them, would the GOP be finished as a national party, and perhaps as any kind of party at all.

The data speaks in a clear voice and it speaks a simple message: the Republican Party can have Donald Trump or it can have a future, but it cannot have both.

Photo Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

Photo Source: Quinnipiac University Poll, 17 February 2016.

Varad Mehta is a historian. He lives in suburban Philadelphia.

 

Superbowl 2016 Commentary

 

Michael Snyder: http://albertpeia.com/michaelsnyderEconomicCollapseEndAmericanDream30516.htm

1-26-16: t_rump: ‘…my supporters are smart and loyal…I could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone and they’d still support me…my poll numbers wouldn’t change’… {When I first heard this sick, outlandish, psychopathic quote I was reluctant to comment upon/post it thinking it must be slickly out of context…it’s not!…as a matter of fact, it’s even worse in context…he meant it!…to be sure, he rivals hitler with his similarly sick devotees buying into his ‘psychopathy’…(so over the top that even the presence of the full moon can’t justify trump’s dangerous lunacy-don’t forget, nuclear weapons exacerbate a globally perilous and precarious doomsday scenario…(how embarrassing for trump supporters, backers, apologists and particularly, america …!)}


HOW EMBARRASSING FOR CHRISTIAN EVANGELICALS, THE NATION, ET CETERA! … Art of a deal?
Sarah Palin: ‘t_rump has a track record of (new york/new jersey)success’pool/drain ‘On the Waterfront’ …

Having told Jimmy Kimmel that he "would love to" appoint Sarah Palin to his cabinet, The Washington Post asks (and answers), just what would a trump cabinet look like?

‘AN UTTER FRAUD. AN ABSOLUTE AND UTTER FRAUD,’ MCGINNISS CALLS PALIN IN AN INTERVIEW ABOUT THE BOOK WITH NBC.

Joe McGinniss Sarah Palin Book, 'The Rogue,' Makes Controversial Claims About Former Alaska Governor  ‘Joe McGinniss's new book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, hits bookstores next week, but its controversial claims about the former Alaska governor are already making waves.

In the book, McGinniss writes that Palin had a one-night stand in 1987 with future NBA basketball player Glen Rice nine months before she married her husband Todd. He quotes a friend who said Palin "had a fetish for black guys for a while."

"She was a gorgeous woman. Super nice. I was blown away by her," Rice tells McGinniss in the book, NBC reports. "Afterward, she was a big crush that I had."

McGinniss's book also alleges that Palin had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner, Brad Hanson, in the mid-1990s, and snorted cocaine off a 55-gallon oil drum while snowboarding.

"An utter fraud. An absolute and utter fraud," McGinniss calls Palin in an interview about the book with NBC.

"At best, she's a hypocrite," McGinniss tells NBC's Savannah Guthrie. "At worst, she's a vindictive hypocrite."

McGinniss famously moved into a house next door to Palin's Wasilla, Alaska home to write his book -- prompting the Palins to accuse him of stalking them. They built a high fence along their property to protect their privacy.

In response to McGinniss's book, Todd Palin gave a statement to NBC saying that McGinniss "spent the last year interviewing marginal figures with an axe to grind in order to churn out a hit piece to satisfy his own creepy obsession with my wife."

"I'd ask the fathers and husbands of America to consider our privacy when one summer day I found this guy on the deck of the rental property, just 18 feet away next door to us, staring like a creep at my wife while she mowed the lawn in her shorts," Palin said.

McGinniss says that anything he learned about Palin by living next door did not make it into the book, but he does become a character in the story himself.

The New York Times writes in its review:

Soon Mr. McGinniss is settling in to enjoy the fuss his mere presence has created. "Normally, for a news story to continue beyond the first 24-hour news cycle, something newsworthy must occur," he writes loftily, but "The Rogue" is filled with proof to the contrary. What was his hate mail like? He quotes it. What did Glenn Beck call him? That’s here too. Who took umbrage at this venom and chose to help him? One man offered him a hideout, despite Mr. McGinniss's slight skepticism about his motives. "But you don’t know me," Mr. McGinniss protested.

McGinniss's book is scheduled to hit bookstores on Tuesday, Sept. 20.’

The Rogue: Searching For The Real Sarah Palin' Cover Revealed Call it Palin Noir. Joe McGinniss' upcoming biography of Sarah Palin has a cover design more fitting for a detective novel. It has a bold...

Joe McGinniss, Palin Neighbor & Author, Leaving Wasilla To Write Book ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sarah Palin can take down the fence. Palin's neighbor of three months on Wasilla's Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss, is packing his...

Bristol Palin Interview Accidentally Reveals Mother's 15 Abortions  www.theonion.comWASILLA, AK—Sarah Palin's political team was forced to do emergency damage control Monday after the former Alaska governor's daughter Bristol accidentally divulged on live television that her mother has undergone at least 15 abortions over the past 30 years. "She's always telling me how special I am, especially considering the five or six babies she aborted before I was born," Palin, 20, said during a CNN interview in which she was asked if she thought her mother would make a good president. "Then of course there were the twins she aborted shortly after having me, another four abortions after Willow somehow survived hers—but anyway, she's a wonderful mom. She just gets pregnant a lot and doesn't always want to have the baby." Palin also commended her mother's strength in carrying three babies with Down syndrome to term, and then even choosing not to give Trig up for adoption like the others.

Another trump advisor/hypocrite:

http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/patrickroberts/Rudy-Giuliani-the-ultimate-hypocrite-on-love-war-and-love-of-country.html

Then there’s Rudy’s war record:

‘Giuliani recently told an audience in Arizona "I would go anywhere, any place, anytime, and I wouldn't give a damn what the President of the United States said, to defend my country. That's a patriot. That's a man who loves his people. That's a man who fights for his people. Unlike our President.”

As regards his desire to fight for his country Barrett points out “Rudy may have forgotten the half-dozen deferments he won ducking the Vietnam War, even getting the federal judge he was clerking for to write a letter creating a special exemption for him. And remember Bernie Kerik? He's the Giuliani police commissioner, business partner and sidekick whose nomination as homeland security secretary narrowly preceded indictments. He then did his national service in prison.”

Barrett points out some more inconsistencies in the Giuliani narrative about the way he was brought up Giuliani went so far as to rebuke the President for not being "brought up the way you were and the way I was brought up through love of this country," 

Giuliani's father Harold did time in prison for holding up a Harlem milkman and was the  bat-wielding enforcer for the loan-sharking operation run out of a Brooklyn Mob store  when he returned home.

As Barrett notes “he and five Rudy uncles found ways to avoid service in World War II. Harold, whose robbery conviction was in the name of an alias, made sure the draft board knew he was a felon. On the other hand, Obama's grandfather and uncle served. His uncle helped liberate Buchenwald, which apparently affected him so deeply he stayed in the family attic for six months when he returned home.

Rudy also said Obama is "more of a critic than he is a supporter of America," Giuliani was a consultant for the government of Qatar, the country his friend and FBI director Louis Freeh accused of hiding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.’

So, when it comes to love of country, love for service, love between a man and woman, it appears Giuliani comes up very short himself.

There’s a term for that

Utter Hypocrisy.’

 

 

 

Politics

 

Harvard professor compares Donald Trump's rise to Hitler's

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican

A Harvard University professor published an editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday that compared the surprising rise of Republican presidential candidate to Adolf Hitler seizing power in Germany.

"Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany," professor and political theorist Danielle Allen wrote.

"Watching Donald Trump's rise, I now understand," she added.

She then went on to explain "how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country." She urged Trump's critics not to stand by passively as he gains support among Republican primary voters.

Allen wrote:

Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him. Similarly, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is unacceptable, but they too, thus far, have been unable to coordinate a solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across our ideological divides.

Hitler rose to power on a nationalist message. He told the German people that they were exceptional and played on feelings of disenfranchisement.

Allen also called for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to drop out of the race for the so that their support could consolidate behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who she argued could pose a viable threat to Trump's candidacy.

Read the full Washington Post editorial here >

Trump captures the nation’s attention on the campaign trail
The Republican presidential candidate focuses on the Super Tuesday state primaries after a win in South Carolina.

By Danielle Allen February 21

Danielle Allen is a political theorist at Harvard University and a contributing columnist for The Post.

Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump’s rise, I now understand. Leave aside whether a direct comparison of Trump to Hitler is accurate. That is not my point. My point rather is about how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.

To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Nazism, I have generally relied on the German-Jewish émigré philosopher Hannah Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow people can understand themselves as “just doing their job,” yet act as cogs in the wheel of a murderous machine. Arendt also offered a second answer in a small but powerful book called “Men in Dark Times.” In this book, she described all those who thought that Hitler’s rise was a terrible thing but chose “internal exile,” or staying invisible and out of the way as their strategy for coping with the situation. They knew evil was evil, but they too facilitated it, by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of hopelessness.

[George Will: Trump relishes wrecking the GOP]

One can see both of these phenomena unfolding now. The first shows itself, for instance, when journalists cover every crude and cruel thing that comes out of Trump’s mouth and thereby help acculturate all of us to what we are hearing. Are they not just doing their jobs, they will ask, in covering the Republican front-runner? Have we not already been acculturated by 30 years of popular culture to offensive and inciting comments? Yes, both of these things are true. But that doesn’t mean journalists ought to be Trump’s megaphone. Perhaps we should just shut the lights out on offensiveness; turn off the mic when someone tries to shout down others; reestablish standards for what counts as a worthwhile contribution to the public debate. That will seem counter to journalistic norms, yes, but why not let Trump pay for his own ads when he wants to broadcast foul and incendiary ideas? He’ll still have plenty of access to freedom of expression. It is time to draw a bright line.

How Donald Trump won the South Carolina GOP primary, in 60 seconds

Donald Trump won the Feb. 20 South Carolina GOP primary. Here's how. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

One spots the second experience in any number of water-cooler conversations or dinner-party dialogues. “Yes, yes, it is terrible. Can you believe it? Have you seen anything like it? Has America come to this?” “Agreed, agreed.” But when someone asks what is to be done, silence falls. Very many of us, too many of us, are starting to contemplate accepting internal exile. Or we joke about moving to Canada more seriously than usually.

But over the course of the past few months, I’ve learned something else that goes beyond Arendt’s ideas about the banality of evil and feelings of impotence in the face of danger.

[Five myths Donald Trump tells about Donald Trump]

Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him. Similarly, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is unacceptable, but they too, thus far, have been unable to coordinate a solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across our ideological divides.

The only way to stop him, then, is to achieve just that kind of coordination across party lines and across divisions within parties. We have reached that moment of truth.

Republicans, you cannot count on the Democrats to stop Trump. I believe that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, and I intend to vote for her, but it is also the case that she is a candidate with significant weaknesses, as your party knows quite well. The result of a head-to-head contest between Clinton and Trump would be unpredictable. Trump has to be blocked in your primary.

Jeb Bush has done the right thing by dropping out, just as he did the right thing by being the first, alongside Rand Paul, to challenge Trump. The time has come, John Kasich and Ben Carson, to leave the race as well. You both express a powerful commitment to the good of your country and to its founding ideals. If you care about the future of this republic, it is time to endorse Marco Rubio. Kasich, there’s a little wind in your sails, but it’s not enough. Your country is calling you. Do the right thing.

Ted Cruz is, I believe, pulling votes away from Trump, and for that reason is useful in the race. But, Mr. Cruz, you are drawing too close to Trump’s politics. You too should change course.

Democrats, your leading candidate is too weak to count on as a firewall. She might be able to pull off a general election victory against Trump, but then again she might not. Too much is uncertain this year. You, too, need to help the Republicans beat Trump; this is no moment for standing by passively. If your deadline for changing your party affiliation has not yet come, re-register and vote for Rubio, even if, like me, you cannot stomach his opposition to marriage equality. I too would prefer Kasich as the Republican nominee, but pursuing that goal will only make it more likely that Trump takes the nomination. The republic cannot afford that.

[Catherine Rampell: Donald Trump thinks you’re stupid. Yes, you.]

Finally, to all of you Republicans who have already dropped out, one more, great act of public service awaits you. As candidates, you pledged to support whomever the Republican party nominated. It’s time to revoke your pledge. Be bold, stand up and shout that you will not support Trump if he is your party’s nominee. Do it together. Hold one big mother of a news conference. Endorse Rubio, together. It is time to draw a bright line, and you are the ones on whom this burden falls. No one else can do it.

Marco Rubio, this is also your moment to draw a bright line. You too ought to rescind your pledge to support the party’s nominee if it is Trump.

Donald Trump has no respect for the basic rights that are the foundation of constitutional democracy, nor for the requirements of decency necessary to sustain democratic citizenship. Nor can any democracy survive without an expectation that the people require reasonable arguments that bring the truth to light, and Trump has nothing but contempt for our intelligence.

We, the people, need to find somewhere, buried in the recesses of our fading memories, the capacity to make common cause against this formidable threat to our equally shared liberties. The time is now.

Read more:

Ruth Marcus: Donald Trump’s utterly ridiculous budget plan

Anne Applebaum: Donald Trump’s campaign of conspiracy theories

Michael Gerson: Donald Trump and the politics of the middle finger

 

NOW WATCH: ‘Turn off the lights!’ — watch Trump turn a lighting outage into a bizarre political talking point


More From Business Insider

 

Influential and Authoritative National Review dumps trump

http://albertpeia.com/conservativesagainsttrump.htm

 

NH paper on Trump: 'Losing is what he does’   By Mark Hensch

New Hampshire’s largest newspaper reignited its feud with Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump late Thursday, criticizing his “decades of failure” in business.

“If you challenged Donald Trump to a game of ‘Trump: The Game,’ he’d lose,” the New Hampshire Union-Leader editorial quipped.“Losing is what he does,” it said.

 "Trump promises that if he were president, we would win so much, we’d get bored and ask him to lose. And Trump has been losing for decades.

“After inheriting his father’s real estate empire, Trump has used crony capitalism and eminent domain to increase it. But Trump’s attempts to set up his own businesses have been striking failures.”

The scathing editorial comes just six days before New Hampshire’s primaries on Tuesday. Trump, who is polling well ahead of the rest of the GOP field in the state, is hoping for a rebound after placing second in the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.

The outspoken billionaire has repeatedly battled the Union-Leader over its coverage of him this election cycle.

He mocked the paper as “dying” under the leadership of publisher Joe McQuaid after the editorial board sharply criticized Trump’s campaign late last year. Trump also took credit when the Union-Leader was cut as a debate co-host.

The publication this week listed a string of the Republican’s high-profile busts.

“Trump Steaks lacked sizzle, Trump Ice bottled water has dried up,” the editorial said. "Trump Airlines never turned a profit, and defaulted on its loans. You can’t order a Trump and tonic because nobody makes Trump Vodka anymore.

“Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for bankruptcy in 1999. And 2004. And 2009. And 2014. Trump University closed its doors in 2011, but is still facing lawsuits for ripping off students for packaging a trumped-up self-help seminar as an actual education.”

The Union-Leader has endorsed Chris Christie in the GOP New Hampshire primary. Trump responded at the time by arguing Christie cannot win the party’s nomination and that the state of New Jersey is currently “a disaster."

Politics

 

Why Donald Trump Can’t Win The White House

Donald Trump is the candidate of the white working class. His popularity with this cohort was recognized early in his candidacy. The preponderance of commentary on the Trump phenomenon since then, whether favorable to the tumescent real-estate mogul and reality television star or not, has proceeded from this assumption.

These analyses affirm Trump’s allure to white, working-class voters as central to his candidacy. It is the pillar on which his dominant standing in the polls rests. If Trump wins the Republican nomination, it will be through their support.

Yet these analyses, revealing as they are, overlook a salient fact. The verdict of working-class voters will not be the only one rendered on Trump, or the most important one. However popular Trump may be with the working class, he is as unpopular with voters who have graduated from college, a group without whose backing the GOP has no shot at regaining the White House.

Trump does respectably among college-educated Republicans. In Quinnipiac University’s most recent poll of the Republican race, Trump received the support of 30 percent of respondents who had a college degree, more than any other Republican. This was an improvement from earlier this month, when Trump trailed Marco Rubio in this demographic. But if three-tenths of college-educated Republicans back Trump, then seven-tenths of them don’t. To put it another way: the vast majority of Republicans with college degrees oppose Donald Trump.

Let’s Compare Donald Trump to Everyone Else

Trump does have a positive favorability score among college Republicans of 55 to 37 percent. Yet his net rating is the lowest of any GOP candidate. Ted Cruz (61 to 27 percent), Marco Rubio (75 to 15 percent), and John Kasich (62 to 9 percent) all best Trump on this measure.

 

Source: Quinnipiac University Poll, 17 February 2016.

Trump also does worst on the question of which candidate “you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president.” Twenty-eight percent of all Republican voters would refuse to back him, which improves to 26 percent when only Republican college graduates are considered.

Trump has a hard ceiling with the latter group that manifests in survey after survey. College graduates constituted 54 percent of Republican turnout in the New Hampshire primary. Trump won this group with 29 percent of the vote. This is a good number. But it also means the other 71 percent went for Trump’s rivals.

In Iowa, Trump fared worse. College graduates made up 51 percent of the GOP caucus electorate. Trump could do no better than third, winning 21 percent of college-educated Iowa Republicans. Both Rubio (28 percent) and Cruz (25 percent) bested him in this crucial demographic. All told, fourth-fifths of Iowa Republicans who graduated college opposed Trump. As Tim Alberta notes in his exegesis of the exit polls from the first two nominating contests, these results suggest “the formation of an anti-Trump coalition among college-educated Republicans.” Trump’s “weak link,” as Ron Brownstein calls it, followed him to South Carolina, where Rubio beat Trump 27 to 25 percent among voters with at least a four-year degree.

There is no reason to believe Trump’s fortunes with college-educated Republican voters will improve—and this is just Republicans. With college-educated voters as a whole, Trump is poison. Pure, lethal poison.

 

The preceding chart, also drawn from Quinnipiac’s latest polling, is illuminating. For one thing, it shows that Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, is 13 points underwater with college-educated voters. Yet she is a homecoming queen compared to Trump, who is an unfathomable 37 points in arrears with college-educated voters. Cruz is also anathema to college graduates. They even look askance at Rubio now, while earlier this month they were enamored of him. Only Bernie Sanders gets positive marks from this group.

A candidate’s standing with college graduates is significant because it correlates with how well he or she performs on head-to-head ballot tests against other candidates. Here the news is no better for Trump. He would get crushed among college voters, and consequently lose the election.

 

This chart reveals just how poorly Trump would do with college graduates against Hillary Clinton. While he loses to Clinton by one point overall, his deficit soars to 15 points with college graduates. This is a gap Trump’s vaunted working-class support can’t fill. According to Quinnipiac, he only leads by five points with voters who don’t have college degrees, 45 to 40 percent.

Cruz, not usually categorized as a champion of the working class, does better with them against Clinton than Trump does. The Texas senator gets 48 percent of working-class voters to 39 percent for the former secretary of state. His deficit among college voters is only 13 points (52 to 39 percent), though, so he leads Clinton 46 to 43 percent. Rubio polls best against Clinton with both groups, trailing 40 to 46 percent with college voters and leading 50 to 37 percent with non-college voters. This translates to a 48 to 41 percent lead for the Florida senator overall.

College-Educated People Vote More

The “diploma divide” among Republican voters was a key factor in the 2012 primary, and it has recurred in 2016. In 2012, college-educated Republicans lined up behind Romney, while those without degrees fragmented among several candidates. But in 2016, as David Wasserman noted in December, it is college-educated Republicans who have divided their support while those without degrees have coalesced behind Trump. Consequently, Trump leads the GOP field because even though he gets only a quarter of Republicans who graduated from college, he gets two-fifths of those who didn’t.

The problem for Trump (or any candidate) is that winning non-college graduates while losing degree holders does not a winning coalition make.

The problem for Trump (or any candidate) is that winning non-college graduates while losing degree holders does not a winning coalition make. All it does is guarantee defeat. Per the 2012 exit polls, Romney won college graduates 51 to 47 percent over President Obama. It was the only educational cohort Romney won on his way to a four-point loss.

Trump supporters might counter that he would make up for it by winning overwhelming support from working-class voters. This is wrong for two reasons. The first reason is that, as seen in the Quinnipiac poll, Trump only breaks even with non-college graduates in the general election. The second reason is that there simply aren’t enough working-class voters to make up for the catastrophic losses among college-educated voters Trump is destined to incur.

Voting propensity is strongly correlated with educational attainment. The more educated one is, the more likely one is to vote. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the two most reliable voting groups in the United States are voters with bachelor’s degrees and those with post-graduate degrees. The following chart, drawn from the 2012 election review by the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, shows that these two groups turned out at rates of 75 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Even those who attended but did not finish college had a voting rate higher than 60 percent. The rate for high school graduates was just over 50 percent, and it declined sharply for those who did not finish high school.

 

There is simply no way a candidate can win a presidential election now by losing the biggest turnout group by ten or more points, as polls consistently show Trump doing. College graduates cannot stand Trump, and this surely is no small factor in him having the highest negative rating of any presidential candidate Gallup has ever tested. Sixty percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump. That kind of radioactivity usually requires a Geiger counter to measure.

College graduates vote more, and there are more of them who vote. According to the 2012 exit polls, 47 percent of voters had at least a four-year degree. Another 29 percent spent at least some time enrolled on campus. That adds up to 76 percent. The overlap is not perfect, but if working-class voters are defined as voters with no more than a high school education, then Trump’s hopes rest on taking larger and larger bites from a cherry.

Donald Trump’s Missing White Voters

Even the pit has been consumed. Psephologists and pundits have fixated on “the mystery of the missing white voters” ever since Sean Trende noticed their disappearance after the 2012 election. In a recent series on the Trump phenomenon, Trende posits that the candidate most likely to appeal to these missing voters is Trump, as they were, for the most part, rural blue-collar whites with an affinity for populism who in another age voted for Ross Perot.

There simply aren’t enough working-class voters to make up for Trump’s catastrophic losses among college-educated voters.

As Nate Cohn puts it, Trump’s base consists of irregularly voting nominal Democrats from the industrial north, the South, and Appalachia. The problem, Trende writes, is that there simply aren’t enough of them to win even if you hold everything else constant. The alternatives are either to win more non-white support or increase the GOP’s already staggering edge with white voters.

There’s the rub. Trump could theoretically get more non-white voters (perhaps by appealing to black voters more than Romney did). Or, more plausibly, he could boost turnout among blue-collar whites with his stances against free trade and immigration. But he would do so almost certainly at the expense of support from white-collar voters.

Liam Donovan framed the dilemma well in a recent article in National Review: “Trump can run up the popular-vote score all he wants riding white-working-class resentment. It won’t help him when he gets buried in swing counties such as Fairfax, Hamilton, Hillsborough, and Arapahoe. Sure, he can target the Rust Belt, but big margins in Western Pennsylvania or the Upper Peninsula won’t matter if he can’t play in Bucks or Oakland Counties.”

Trump won’t play in Bucks County. He won’t for reasons Trende articulates in the final part of his excellent series. He argues that Trump is the avatar of what he labels “cultural traditionalism.” Cultural traditionalists share certain attitudes “about the importance of family, religion, achievement, intellectual advancement, diversity (at least within categories deemed important by elites), patriotism, and nationalism” distinct from, and often diametrically opposed to, those of their counterparts, the “cultural cosmopolitans.”

In voting terms, there are more cultural cosmopolitans than there are cultural traditionalists, and by a considerable margin.

The GOP establishment is made up for the most part of cultural cosmopolitans, while many of its voters are cultural traditionalists. Out of this untenable tension sprang Trump. The cultural traditionalists love him not least because he is a giant middle finger to the cosmopolitans.

The nation’s metropolitan areas and suburbs, though, are populated by cultural cosmopolitans, affluent, college-educated professionals who cringe whenever Trump promises to ban Muslims or deport every illegal immigrant in the country. As we have already seen, there are, at least in voting terms, more cultural cosmopolitans than there are cultural traditionalists, and by a considerable margin. As we have also seen, they loathe Donald Trump. They are never going to vote for someone who so grievously offends their sensibilities.

Evidence Trump Haters Won’t Switch Sides

A Trump backer might rejoin that I am merely speculating that college-educated Republicans would not flock to Trump if he became the nominee. Supporters of one candidate during a primary often say they won’t support his opponent but rally around the party flag for the general election. This is a fair point. It is hard to prove a negative, especially one that hasn’t happened yet. There is some evidence, however, to indicate Trump may not benefit from this normal pattern.

On Election Day, Akin lost college graduates 50 to 44 percent, a seven-point swing.

There are few analogues to Trump in recent years. One who resembled the magnate, at least in his capacity for intemperate remarks, was Todd Akin. In the last poll conducted before he devoured his leg, Akin led his 2012 Missouri Senate race against incumbent Claire McCaskill by 11 points. This included a one-point advantage with college graduates, 46 to 45 percent. Yet on Election Day, Akin lost college graduates 50 to 44 percent, a seven-point swing. Moreover, 15 percent of Republican voters defected and voted for McCaskill.

Another GOP Senate candidate who made foolish remarks about abortion in 2012 was Richard Mourdock of Indiana. He managed to win college-educated voters, but like Akin he bled considerable Republican support: 14 percent of Hoosier Republicans backed Democrat Joe Donnelly, who won.

In 2010, Sharron Angle, the controversial GOP Senate nominee in Nevada, lost 11 percent of Republicans to Harry Reid. Her Colorado counterpart, Ken Buck, saw 10 percent of Republicans shift to Michael Bennett.

Most instructive, perhaps, is the 2008 presidential election, which saw Barack Obama win 9 percent of Republicans and an astounding 20 percent of self-described conservatives. Given the aspirational qualities of Obama’s candidacy, we should not be surprised he had so much cross-ballot appeal. Nine or 10 percent is not much in a decisive contest like his first presidential campaign, but in a close election or a swing state it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Donald Trump Means the End of the Republican Party

Trump doesn’t make inflammatory comments about rape or abortion. That’s because he’s too busy making them about everything else: immigration, foreign policy, economics, his rivals, journalists, you name it. His peanut gallery roars, but the rest of the country is unimpressed. A Trump-inspired descent into white identity politics would be a cataclysm for the GOP because it would alienate the very voters it needs if it wants the White House back. It must get at least a few voters for whom cultural affinity outweighs partisan affiliation. There is no way to win without them. Trump’s campaign, on the other hand, depends on pursuing voters who don’t exist at the cost of those who do.

Trump’s campaign depends on pursuing voters who don’t exist at the cost of those who do.

It is well and good to appeal to the working class. It behooves the GOP to do so. There is great merit in criticizing the GOP and its leadership and policy cadres, which often seem to care about little more than hunting such mythical beasts as the flat tax while pretending to pay lip service to any number of causes dear to its rank and file. I have myself avowed that the GOP establishment (and donor class) deserve “incineration.” But Trump should not be the instrument of vengeance. For that sword, once drawn, will be sheathed only with difficulty.

By now you have surely begun to suspect that I oppose Trump. You’re right. I oppose him on philosophical and ideological grounds. But I also oppose him for practical reasons. Nominate Trump, and the GOP would lose college-educated voters for at least a generation, and possibly forever. With them would go the prospect of ever again winning states like Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. So, without them, would the GOP be finished as a national party, and perhaps as any kind of party at all.

The data speaks in a clear voice and it speaks a simple message: the Republican Party can have Donald Trump or it can have a future, but it cannot have both.

Photo Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

Photo Source: Quinnipiac University Poll, 17 February 2016.

Varad Mehta is a historian. He lives in suburban Philadelphia.

 

 

1-29-16: Bully/misogynist trump runnin’ scared … ducks the fearless Megyn Kelly who won’t be intimidated by trump and his crazies … instead, he slickly teams up with a similarly self-interested slick, more familiar greasy guinea/wop (yeah … he likes the way they count … $8 for themselves, 5 cents for others … and convenient memories to maximize their take – don’t forget ill douche-bag, il Duce, the fascist deigo italian friend of hitler named mussolini) to deflect attention from his cowardice (t_rump  goes after those girls: but Megyn Kelly fears no evil … ‘blood from her eyes and other body parts’ … a disparagement of women, to be sure; but as well, more importantly, for those in the know, a veiled threat meant to intimidate - not that t_rump would actually bloody them but some mob minion of one of the extant ny/nj entrenched old gangs with whom he’s ingratiated himself…) t_rump attacks Carly Fiorina’s looks … Fiorina rose from secretary to CEO in Fortune 500 Companies … surely a ‘corporate Horatio Alger story’ that could inspire any woman or man … t_rump’s ‘pre-greased palms’ $300 million (when dollars were dollars) headstart in n.y/n.j. gangland/national drainland, font of corruption/ill-gotten gains could not possibly rival her accomplishment … Looks? … That pelt atop t_rump’s otherwise bald head is preposterous

… a total joke worthy of carnival exposure … I believe it’s probably made of his own hair, so he can say (as he did) that it’s his own hair … He’s been obsessing about his (going/growing) baldness since back in the days of his Ivana marriage (

‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell ) … Additionally, he had liposuction and would require ‘lights out’ before ‘conjugal bliss’ so embarrassed was he of his unshapely, flabby body (id.) .

 

1-23-16: t_rump: ‘The NFL like america has gotten soft’ {… Wow! How does he get away with this stuff, not to mention the illegal stuff … oh well, that’s life ‘On the Waterfront’ (in new york/new jersey) … How ‘bout t_rump be given the ball for one play with an NFL team defending … they’d be carrying him off the field on a stretcher (likely unconscious / with broken bones) or in a bodybag … Then there’s Ted Cruz, the new birther/Hispanic/canuck focus of the don’s anti-immigration demagoguery … Yes, new york don, you can allude to / point out that you’re a royal anchor baby to Scottish-born Mary Queen of Scots who lost her head attempting to ‘depose’ (of)Queen(s,ny) Elizabeth … (Warren? your ny wall street gang’s antagonist?… no don, she’s a Bostonian of new not old England/Britain) …  The donald … there will always be a place for you on Saturday Night Live from new york … and, word has it, you’ll be a recurring guest on Weekend Update along with guido sarducci and a reprised Roseanne Rosanna Danna along with Tony Soprano … yes, new york don, as always, your set is already set … ‘On the Waterfront’ with new york values and all the fixins’…}
HOW EMBARRASSING FOR CHRISTIAN EVANGELICALS, THE NATION, ET CETERA! … Art of a deal?
Sarah Palin: ‘t_rump has a track record of (new york/new jersey)success’pool/drain ‘On the Waterfront’ …

Having told Jimmy Kimmel that he "would love to" appoint Sarah Palin to his cabinet, The Washington Post asks (and answers), just what would a trump cabinet look like?

‘AN UTTER FRAUD. AN ABSOLUTE AND UTTER FRAUD,’ MCGINNISS CALLS PALIN IN AN INTERVIEW ABOUT THE BOOK WITH NBC.

Joe McGinniss Sarah Palin Book, 'The Rogue,' Makes Controversial Claims About Former Alaska Governor  ‘Joe McGinniss's new book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, hits bookstores next week, but its controversial claims about the former Alaska governor are already making waves.

In the book, McGinniss writes that Palin had a one-night stand in 1987 with future NBA basketball player Glen Rice nine months before she married her husband Todd. He quotes a friend who said Palin "had a fetish for black guys for a while."

"She was a gorgeous woman. Super nice. I was blown away by her," Rice tells McGinniss in the book, NBC reports. "Afterward, she was a big crush that I had."

McGinniss's book also alleges that Palin had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner, Brad Hanson, in the mid-1990s, and snorted cocaine off a 55-gallon oil drum while snowboarding.

"An utter fraud. An absolute and utter fraud," McGinniss calls Palin in an interview about the book with NBC.

"At best, she's a hypocrite," McGinniss tells NBC's Savannah Guthrie. "At worst, she's a vindictive hypocrite."

McGinniss famously moved into a house next door to Palin's Wasilla, Alaska home to write his book -- prompting the Palins to accuse him of stalking them. They built a high fence along their property to protect their privacy.

In response to McGinniss's book, Todd Palin gave a statement to NBC saying that McGinniss "spent the last year interviewing marginal figures with an axe to grind in order to churn out a hit piece to satisfy his own creepy obsession with my wife."

"I'd ask the fathers and husbands of America to consider our privacy when one summer day I found this guy on the deck of the rental property, just 18 feet away next door to us, staring like a creep at my wife while she mowed the lawn in her shorts," Palin said.

McGinniss says that anything he learned about Palin by living next door did not make it into the book, but he does become a character in the story himself.

The New York Times writes in its review:

Soon Mr. McGinniss is settling in to enjoy the fuss his mere presence has created. "Normally, for a news story to continue beyond the first 24-hour news cycle, something newsworthy must occur," he writes loftily, but "The Rogue" is filled with proof to the contrary. What was his hate mail like? He quotes it. What did Glenn Beck call him? That’s here too. Who took umbrage at this venom and chose to help him? One man offered him a hideout, despite Mr. McGinniss's slight skepticism about his motives. "But you don’t know me," Mr. McGinniss protested.

McGinniss's book is scheduled to hit bookstores on Tuesday, Sept. 20.’

The Rogue: Searching For The Real Sarah Palin' Cover Revealed Call it Palin Noir. Joe McGinniss' upcoming biography of Sarah Palin has a cover design more fitting for a detective novel. It has a bold...

Joe McGinniss, Palin Neighbor & Author, Leaving Wasilla To Write Book ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sarah Palin can take down the fence. Palin's neighbor of three months on Wasilla's Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss, is packing his...

Bristol Palin Interview Accidentally Reveals Mother's 15 Abortions  www.theonion.comWASILLA, AK—Sarah Palin's political team was forced to do emergency damage control Monday after the former Alaska governor's daughter Bristol accidentally divulged on live television that her mother has undergone at least 15 abortions over the past 30 years. "She's always telling me how special I am, especially considering the five or six babies she aborted before I was born," Palin, 20, said during a CNN interview in which she was asked if she thought her mother would make a good president. "Then of course there were the twins she aborted shortly after having me, another four abortions after Willow somehow survived hers—but anyway, she's a wonderful mom. She just gets pregnant a lot and doesn't always want to have the baby." Palin also commended her mother's strength in carrying three babies with Down syndrome to term, and then even choosing not to give Trig up for adoption like the others.

 

Trump On Waterboarding: "You Bet Your Ass I'd Approve It, Even If It Doesn't Work"  { Hitlerian psychopath! What a regression! Begging for blowback! }Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/24/2015 "Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works and if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us." { What they do to us? … For the past several decades it’s what we do to them! Guest Post: Ending Blowback Terrorism Painful as it is to admit, the West, especially the United States, bears significant responsibility for creating the conditions in which ISIS has flourished.    Trump advocates waterboarding enemy combatants  { Regressively sick! }The Hill | Donald Trump says if he’s elected president, he’ll bring back enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding for enemy combatants.  }

 

12-22-15: The greatest charitable gift that could be bestowed upon mental case trump is that he’s but suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder … the donald from his own words was also ‘wronged/unfairly treated’ by not having been named Time Man of the Year (Angela Merkel) which typified the conspiracy against him as previously evinced by the denial of an Emmy for his ‘(un)reality tv show’ the Apprentice … wow! … t_rump is unequivocally a walking/talking panoply of psychological disorders that in totality makes him a psychopath of hitlerian magnitude and proportion!

12-18-15: t_rump is incensed by Hillary’s statement that t_rump’s anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric for his crazies’ consumption was not literally true; viz., show the video … hmmm … come on! … the statement’s been reiterated by him on national television, ‘seen by all’, shocking by the hitlerian purpose/content/modus operandi and no doubt easily recorded and indelibly imprinted on every Islamic mind … Apology? … t_rump should be disqualified from candidacy on prospective humanitarian and constitutionally repugnant grounds!

 

TRUMP: Ryan budget ‘a disaster, a joke’ { What did they expect from Paul Ryan at this juncture/this late date? … Did they expect him to muster /conjure up t_rump’s prospective (who else could it be?) Secretariot Harry Potter who is purported to know how to use a magic wand to solve longstanding intractable problems that have financially benefited mightily the fashionably political but conveniently late complainers; the purported previous and undeniably lucrative (for them) ‘cure’ being the exacerbation of the extant Gordian Knot of a problem. Congressman cuts through 2,000 pages -- with sword!  …  Well, it worked for Alexander the Great … My, my how times have changed …}

12-11-15:  Donald Trump's Plan on Muslims Is Opposed by Most Americans ...  Wall Street Journal-Dec 10, 2015  Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the ... Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims' entry ...  Poll: Solid opposition to ban on Muslims entering USCBS News-13 hours ago Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump sparked a firestorm when ... However, 53 percent of those who back banning Muslims from ...Trump defends Muslim entry ban as "the right thing to do"euronews The US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has again defended his proposal to ban Muslims from entering America. In a speech ...  { Sick nazi t_rump (thinking … what would adolph do?)… Think … the natural, rational, and reasonable reaction is for muslim nations to ban non-muslims … after all, an easy sell in light of the very prominent substantial damage inflicted on muslim nations by non-muslim nations, wrongfully and in violation of international law … further, it’s a mystery to none that non-muslim nations can’t even manage their own nations much less being interlopers attempting to ‘regime-change/micro manage’ Muslim nations … america has the highest crime stats by far and biggest criminals, if wealthy, are untouchable, etc. … Really bad blowback from this sick, dumb position which, posited against a religion, is an unwinnable/ultimately losing position and contraindicated …}

 

11-23-15 Carson camp walks back support for Trump's disputed 9/11 celebration claim CNN { Actually, in eg., Weehawken, n.j., there was celebration; but, less palatable for american consumption, was/is the reality that the celebrators were israeli operatives … There was, to be sure, celebration worldwide ( ie., China’s chairman replayed the plane footage over and over again, etc…. then, of course, for the neo-cons, a dream come true … that Pearl Harbor event they’ve been documented to have so longed for … and, for those nations the objects of misguided wayward american missiles … celebration in jersey city, hudson county, n.j.? … jersey city, n.j. is one of those proverbial ‘armpits of the earth’ in a pervasively corrupt hudson county in pervasively corrupt defacto mob-controlled new jersey (mob gangs into and entrenched in every process – t_rump knows only too well) … then of course the radical muslim clerics, etc….(Egypt's new president vows to free blind sheik from Jersey City ... The Jersey Journal - NJ.com-Jun 29, 2012 ... vowed before a crowd of thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square today to work for the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Jersey City sheik )… )

Mossad – The Israeli Connection To 911  ... being involved in the terror attacks of 9/11. ... from a phony moving company in Weehawken, N.J., ... The Israeli agents were later returned to Israel on ...     http://rense.com/general64/moss.htm  ‘…Shortly after the destruction of the twin towers, radio news reports described five "Middle Eastern men" being arrested in New Jersey after having been seen videotaping and celebrating the explosive "collapses" of the WTC. These men, from a phony moving company in Weehawken, N.J., turned out to be agents of Israeli military intelligence, Mossad. Furthermore, their "moving van" tested positive for explosives. Dominic Suter, the Israeli owner of Urban Moving Systems, the phony "moving company," fled in haste, or was allowed to escape, to Israel before FBI agents could interrogate him. The Israeli agents were later returned to Israel on minor visa violations…’

 

11-24-15  Trump On Waterboarding: "You Bet Your Ass I'd Approve It, Even If It Doesn't Work"  { Hitlerian psychopath! What a regression! Begging for blowback! Violations of international law! War crimes! } Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/24/2015 "Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that…”

Donald Trump is LITERALLY Hitler!Trump: Our Illegal Alien in the GOP See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel.

Bill Maher Points Out How Frighteningly Similar are Donald trump and hitler ...  huffingtonpost.com

According To Bill Maher, Donald Trump Sounds Like Hitler youtube.com

We’re going to make Germany great again, that I can tell you ... www.salon.com/2016/03/05/were_going_to_make_german



11-22-15: { If there’s one thing that t_rump is personally familiar with and knows something about it’s ‘pathological’ … yes, don t_rump, you’re pathological … not being the personal favorite/first-born ’chosen son’ and who always had to struggle for attention

(from author O’Donnell  … ‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell  ) 

t_rump: the incident showed Carson had a "pathological" temper.    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/carsons-comeback-trumps-insults-pray-him-135707822.html 

"If you're pathological, there's no cure for that," Trump said. "If you're a child molester, there's no cure. They can't stop you."

Carson has said his intended stabbing victim's belt buckle blocked his knife, a detail Trump singled out in his rant.

"Lo and behold! It hit the belt. It hit the belt and the knife broke," Trump said mockingly.

Other Republican candidates came to Carson's defense early Friday and slammed Trump for his controversial plans on foreign policy and immigration.

"Anyone can turn a multi-million dollar inheritance into more money, but all the money in the world won't make you as smart as Ben Carson," candidate Carly Fiorina wrote on Facebook.

Republican candidate Lindsey Graham called Carson a "good, decent man," and said of Trump: "I think he melted down last night."

"He has no clue what he's talking about," Graham, a South Carolina senator, said on Fox News. "Over time, that will take a toll - I hope."

Donald Trump's Plan for a Muslim Database Draws Comparison to Nazi Germany  NBCNews.com

Trump refuses to rule out third-party run  { What’s the signed pledge/word of a mental case/mobster/hitler aficionado worth anyway? After all, hitler would never have ascended to power without a broken pledge/word here or there! } The Hill | Donald Trump is refusing to rule out an independent White House run if he fails to win the Republican presidential nomination.   

MAFIA WARNS ISIS, OFFERS NYC PROTECTION...     { Hmmm … how much additional tribute to the entrenched domestic terrorists will that cost … make no mistake, to be passed on to the rest of the nation … and then the betrayal … for money of course … then complete control … what deals? … weapons? drugs? laundered money to expand/spread control? … wake up! … the mob’s full of s**! … the ny/nj national drain … do you think t_rump would be anti-hispanic if the Mexican gangs were paying ny/nj ‘tribute’? wake up to reality of ny/nj mob control … bribes flow freely making bad policy in america …}  Plan A for GOP donors: Wait for Trump to fall. (There is no Plan B.) Washington Post  When Donald Trump landed in Ohio this week, he got a taste of the meager Republican super PAC efforts aimed at him: a 47-second Web video clipping together some of his most provocative comments and a small airplane trailing a banner proclaiming, ... Kasich Super PAC Ad Compares a Fellow Republican to Nazis      Donald Trump's 4 Brain Farts on Trade and Immigration Reason (blog)    Featured: Black Protester Beaten at Trump Rally Ready to Sue for Hate Crime Daily Beast

John Kasich on Donald Trump: ‘I’ve dealt with bullies all my life’

https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/kasich-on-trump-bullies-dont-bother-me-221438775.html

 

CARSON FIGHTS BACK

Post Politics

Ben Carson defends his telling of an informal offer from West Point

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/06/ben-carsons-allies-defend-west-point-story-he-got-an-offer-did-not-apply   { Come on … let’s call a spade a spade here … Uncle ben, now having relegated himself to pushing candied rice … I haven’t criticized him owing to my respect for the medical profession and expected, disingenuous, pathetic race card or similar knee-jerk reaction … but, he’s done! }

{ Part and parcel of an appointment to West Point is a ‘recommendation’ from a member of Congress … Mine was Congressman Widnall, Republican, n.j.. I have the highest regard for the Academies; but especially, for West Point. }

{ carson, making the rounds (in cleanup/repair mode), appears to be crying foul in terms of an alleged ‘double standard’ as applied to scrutiny of him compared with obama … no, uncle ben … it’s a ‘fool me once/twice’ type of thing; viz., fool me once (obama, holder, et als), shame on them … fool me twice (ben), shame on me (us)… ( And, I have to say as others have, the ‘stuff’ from carson’s own mouth is unequivocally pretty weird by any standard and should not be ignored …) }

 

 

11-7-15: t_rump wants to make america great again … does ‘Saturday Night Live’ … wow! … that’s worth a laugh or two … yes, t_rump’s effectively saying the joke’s on you!  {Think about it … seriously … would any of the historically great leaders/presidents have so exercised such poor judgment to garner attention to his/her self by resorting to a comedy show starring appearance/performance in these dire, perilous times … YES, T_RUMP’S A JOKE/JOKER! }

9-10-15: Bully/misogynist (t_rump  goes after those girls: but Megyn Kelly fears no evil … ‘blood from her eyes and other body parts’ … a disparagement of women, to be sure; but as well, more importantly, for those in the know, a veiled threat meant to intimidate - not that t_rump would actually bloody them but some mob minion of one of the extant ny/nj entrenched old gangs with whom he’s ingratiated himself…) t_rump attacks Carly Fiorina’s looks … Fiorina rose from secretary to CEO in Fortune 500 Companies … surely a ‘corporate Horatio Alger story’ that could inspire any woman or man … t_rump’s ‘pre-greased palms’ $300 million (when dollars were dollars) headstart in n.y/n.j. gangland/national drainland, font of corruption/ill-gotten gains could not possibly rival her accomplishment … Looks? … That pelt atop t_rump’s otherwise bald head is

preposterous … a total joke worthy of carnival exposure … I believe it’s probably made of his own hair, so he can say (as he did) that it’s his own hair … He’s been obsessing about his (going/growing) baldness since back in the days of his Ivana marriage (

‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell ) … Additionally, he had liposuction and would require ‘lights out’ before ‘conjugal bliss’ so embarrassed was he of his unshapely, flabby body (id.) .

t_rump: says he’s high energy … unfortunately for this world, so was his idol whose orations he obsessively listened to (id.) ; viz., that ‘mein kampf’ author, adolf … t_rump says he’s aggressive … yes, don … just like adolf … unfortunately for this world, also a psychopath …

(NOTE: 8-23-15 t_rump says tax the hedge funds … sure, relatively small in size, dispersed here and there… chump change if at all collectible with offsets given the sell-off owing to fraudulently inflated bubble prices coming back to earth/reality; but, not the institutional monoliths, ie., goldman sachs, j.p.morgan, et als of his new york/new jersey national drain homeland and at the heart of scam/problem – bail-outs, pennies-on-a-dollar ‘cost of business’ fines but no prosecutions or full disgorgement, huge bonuses even as bailed out, etc. … If you think t_rump is for the middle class, you haven’t been paying attention or he might just sell you the Brooklyn Bridge … You are already paying for churn and earn, non-value, non-value added computerized lightning-fast scams). Yes, as Michael Lewis pointed out, ‘A Den of Thieves’ (See also Michael Lewis’ recent fact-filled non-fiction book, ‘The Big Short’ – ‘… The Big Short describes several of the key players in the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The book also highlights the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain….’ Wikipedia )

Here are some reasons Trump stays so popular with his supporters:

·         Highly relatable lack of qualifications for holding government office

·         Americans’ appreciation for classic underdog story of man who started with only several hundred million dollars and went on to make several billion dollars

·         Only candidate to publicly state willingness to make america great again

·         Exploits other Republican candidates’ weaknesses by allowing them to open their mouths and speak on issues

·         Very, very handsome | wearing that striking pelt on his otherwise bald head |

·         Voters eager to see presidential library with three infinity pools and rooftop driving range

·         Bolstered by impassioned endorsement from Donald Trump

·         Eccentric, megalomaniac billionaire still more relatable to average American than anyone willing to dedicate life to politics

·         Appeals to widespread desire to see nation implode sooner rather than later

Source: The Onion

 

see  http://albertpeia.com/trumpshitler.htm     ,    http://albertpeia.com/trumpism.htm    

{ The latest in t_rump’s disparagement of john mccain: … t_rump will set his military service record against that of McCain any day; viz., ‘the donald’ t_rump 0 vs. mccain –1 … yes john, yours is a negative number (victory t_rump), because (bully and coward as all bullies are) t_rump says you’re a loser for having been shot down in your fighter jet in the heat of actual battle and having been captured seriously injured thereafter [along with 5 years of torturous captivity – If only t_rump had focused on mccain’s senility, misguided military industrial complex welfare programs warned against by great but underrated President General Eisenhower (note t_rump has gone after Academy grads, ie.,Graham, McCain, where honor was/is still taught but for quite some time has been out of fashion/irrelevant, not practiced), violations of the military code of conduct while prisoner, ‘keating 5 type corruption’, etc., t_rump might have at least showed deceptively a semblance of rationality; but of course, going after corruption would be for t_rump, blatantly self-destructive-that trump’s not in jail is a testament to how far america’s fallen] … and fellow veterans you are on notice by t_rump: Those of you who actually have served to date, who’ve been POW’s, lost limbs, been wounded, maimed, killed are losers … not winners in the corrupt/fixed/bribe-induced fantasy world (‘mobster in chief’ would more suit the ‘teflon don t_rump’ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf   http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm        http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm  .    ) of t_rump’s sociopathic/narcissistic projection of ‘real winners’ in the mold of ‘the donald’s’ role model/idol, ‘the furor’, the psychotic adolph hitler himself whose orations t_rump obsessively listened to for inspiration (from author O’Donnell as per Ivanna Trump … ‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell  )  Student deferment AND medical deferment (psychological / psychiatric I could believe is apropos), t_rump likes to cover all bases, ‘flower child’ that he conveniently was at the time (WHAT TYPICAL TRUMP B**L S**T!). (Just kidding about ‘flower child’ … I always liked real hippies; especially those real hippies who molded themselves to the extent possible in the manner of Jesus Christ himself in terms of peace, love, and ‘quintessential anti-greed/anti-corruption’.) This t_rump scenario brings to mind that great oscar-worthy film superbly crafted by the underrated David Cronenberg, ‘Dead Zone’ (book by Stephen King), oscar-worthy great performance (how did they miss it) by lead Christopher Walken with great performances across the board; especially Martin Sheen superbly as the psychotic, ruthlessly aggressive, trumpishly ambitious politician, Greg Stillson. Borrowing the words of Walken’s psychically endowed Johnny Smith rather than to t_rump his own ‘your fired’, I say (to psychotic mental case trump) ’YOU’RE FINISHED’!  }

 

More Megyn Kelly Headlines

 

Megyn Kelly reportedly received death threats from Donald Trump supporters

Business Insider via Yahoo! FinanceAug 11

Fox News host Megyn Kelly told her network that she received death threats from Donald Trump...

 

Megyn Kelly fears no evil … ‘blood from her eyes and other body parts’ … a disparagement of women, to be sure; but as well, more importantly, for those in the know, a veiled threat meant to intimidate - not that t_rump would actually bloody them but some mob minion of one of the extant ny/nj entrenched old gangs with whom he’s ingratiated himself, through ie., the federal bench – viz., sister maryanne trump barry et als, etc. – don’t the feds have any pride/honor? – ask the ‘tough questions’ of these and other major american criminals, ie., wall street, etc. – they’ll either lie, plead the 5th, or be arrested on the spot – oh well, Martha Stewart was a 45 thousand dollar soft target to be bullied to jail under some perverted notion they’re doing their job – what job – coverup for the biggest criminals – how pathetic and gutless they are  … and nbc (and parent companies among others) who gave rise to media/unreality tv exposure to ‘american furor’ t_rump seems happy to oblige with one of those Sunday joke shows … t_rump just wants fairness … for himself and only for himself [through whatever means, ie., bribery through, ie., retainers to law firms linked to state attorney generals, viz., {kimmelman} wolf and sampson, chris droney’s (now a fed judge) brother, his sister’s protection/corruption and quid pro quo from the federal bench, etc., and as well, protection of drug-money laundering through his now nominal only casinos … ( it’s important to note that bribes in pervasively corrupt america take many forms beyond direct monetary transfers and are ubiquitous and extend to all levels of government; ie., legislators/politicians’ quid pro quo, judges, prosecutors, fbi <hoover’s ‘whorse-trading’ was ‘world famous’, etc.>, sam alito rising by way of cover-up/quid pro quo/bribe to inept supreme court justice labeled after an infamous faux paux in terms of judicial acumen/ability as <in a Washington Post comment> making clarence thomas look like Oliver Wendell Holmes <my personal favorite jurist>, maryanne trump barry awaiting full payment of bribe to brother don’s trump casinos before ruling for RICO defendants (she also protected john gotti, etc.), etc., See, ie.,

http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf  http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm 

http://albertpeia.com/fbimartinezcongallard.htm   . 

; that is, as he corruptly asserts ill-gotten financial dominance – always getting a piece of someone else’s action/work/off the top like a cost so prevalent and built in ‘On the Waterfront’ – think of those instances where t_rump had to ‘real (not under)world’ compete; ie., trump air, trump university, jersey generals(pro football), the fraudulent debacle in Baja California bearing his name, etc…fraud and failure… ] … Because americans are for the most part, cowards if not bullies, the threat seems to have had the desired effect  …

 

The ‘strategy’ promulgated by mobster t_rump on national television: ‘take away their wealth’ … well, that’s worked for him in america where the processes are fixed/corrupted and far from the ‘fair treatment’ he’s demanding as if a victim … Wasn’t that hitler’s strategy/popular tune … a page right out of hitler’s blood-red linings playbook … and, even substantially a motivation for the debacle in Iraq (oil wealth) which I unequivocally opposed ab initio  and without qualification … Well now, isn’t that what made the 20th century the bloodiest … payback/pushback/blowback’s a bitch and modern weaponry is ever more lethal … t_rump awaited the negative outcome before taking a position – check the dates … t_rump’s also exploited the hot button issue of immigration when the truth/reality is that the aforesaid immigration debacle is but a fraction of the damage/cost to the nation of home-grown crimes of corruption, bribery, illegal drugs/(drug) money laundering and financial frauds in the hundreds of billions (along with citizen violent crimes which has made the u.s. number 1 in that regard for many decades), integral to and attributes of his indigenous new york/new jersey nationwide sinkhole; the frenzy obscuring the magnitude of such home-grown crimes /criminality /corruption that has benefited him while focusing on the almost insignificant by financial comparison immigration issue … Since Pope Francis has been vocal/prominent in the immigration debate, it is time for The Church to step up so as not to be accused of silence as was so during hitler’s rise … the scape-goating of the relatively powerless/ the minorities/ the poor/ the oppressed … yet another page right out of hitler’s blood-red linings playbook … What say you, Pope Francis … After all, the ‘moneychangers’ to which t_rump is joined at the hip (ie., wall street, etc.) would make the corrupt, avaricious ‘moneychangers’ condemned by Christ look like novices/pikers in comparison. (NOTE: 8-23-15 t_rump says tax the hedge funds … sure, relatively small in size dispersed here and there… chump change if at all collectible with offsets given the sell-off owing to fraudulently inflated bubble prices coming back to earth/reality; but, not the institutional monoliths, ie., goldman sachs, j.p.morgan, et als of his new york/new jersey national drain homeland and at the heart of scam/problem – bail-outs, pennies-on-a-dollar ‘cost of business’ fines but no prosecutions or full disgorgement, huge bonuses even as bailed out, etc. … If you think t_rump is for the middle class, you haven’t been paying attention or he might just sell you the Brooklyn Bridge … You are already paying for churn and earn, non-value, non-value added computerized lightning-fast scams) Yes, as Michael Lewis pointed out, ‘A Den of Thieves’ (See also Michael Lewis’ most recent fact-filled non-fiction book, ‘The Big Short’ – ‘… The Big Short describes several of the key players in the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The book also highlights the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain….’ Wikipedia  )

‘The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.’ – Henri Bergson

 

Donald Trump Empire Sought Visas For At Least 1100 Foreign Workers  Huffington Post

 

TRUMP MANIFESTO TO HIT STREET ON SAME DAY AS DEBATE...  { Psychopaths all seem to have one, even trump’s idol, adolph hitler, ‘Mein Kampf’, while in jail  before rise …  :

·        Alleged Cop Killer's Manifesto 'Self-Serving,' ...

abcnews.go.com/US/...cops-chris-dorners-manifesto-speaks/...

Feb 06, 2013 · The rage-filled "manifesto" written by former police officer Christopher Dorner before he went on an alleged cop killing spree around the Los Angeles area ...

·       

Cashing In? Jodi Arias Wrote A ' Manifesto' In...

radaronline.com/videos/murder-jodi...manifesto-in-jail-to...

Apr 07, 2013 · Jodi Arias Wrote A 'Manifesto' In Jail To Sell — After She Got (In)Famous. ... PHOTOS: Jodi Arias Murder Trial: The 44 Most Important Evidence Photos.   Etc.


The rant of the despot tyrant, t_rump … isn’t that what they (despots, tyrants, dictators) all say … they’ll ‘get things done’ (purported democracy nothwithstanding) … indeed, ‘the furor’, t_rump’s role model did exactly that … ‘america’s a hellhole’ says trump; indeed, in his own image, your pain has been his gain … I differ with the Washington Post’s Philip Bump in that I think t_rump will bring Harry Potter into his fetid fold to act as secretary of state and treasury to use his magic wand to abrogate all the failed policies that facilitated t_rump’s ill-gotten gains and concomitantly your pains (the cost of t_rump’s gains) and magically ‘get things done’  … yes, ‘the donald’, like ‘the furor’, is a man of action … Hmmm! … What truly amazes me is that americans really believe or, at the least, are totally ignorant of the reality that t_rump’s ill-gotten gains were ill-gotten / illegitimate and ultimately garnered at yours and the nation’s expense … hence, the nation’s current predicament … Department of (In)justice? … t_rump would keep that just the way it corruptly is …


Here is what (a) President Trump’s Cabinet will look like

By Philip Bump July 29

Gotta re-fill all these seats! (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)


Somehow, I didn't know that Mama Grizzly Radio existed, probably because I live on one of the coasts and not in Real America, which includes Alaska despite it being on a coast. The network touts itself as offering "Sarah Palin news 24-7" -- a slate that includes a weekly show called "The Palin Update with Kevin Scholla." (One Palin update from this week's program: "President Obama finally lowers flags to half-staff to honor our Marines shortly after Governor Palin and others demand he do so.")

But the real news on that show came when Donald Trump joined Scholla. The host asked Trump if he might appoint Palin to a Cabinet position. "I'd love that," Trump responded. "So would we," added Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon, basically.

It raises the question, though: What would a Trump Cabinet look like?

Because Trump is busy poring over poll numbers and reviewing tape from focus groups, we went ahead and cobbled it together for him.

●●●●●●●

 

Vice President: Oprah Winfrey, per Trump's past suggestion. Would she run with Trump? If Donald Trump can convince the Hispanic vote to come out for him, which he insists he can, he can certainly convince Winfrey to join his ticket. He has great negotiators.

Secretary of the Interior: Sarah Palin. Granted, Palin would probably like something a little more substantive than this, but what other candidate can brag about having toured the country hunting various animals for a TV show? In case Palin declines, maybe reach out to that dentist.

Attorney General: His go-to counsel, Michael Cohen.

Secretary of Homeland Security: Joe Arpaio. Trump's campaign shot into the stratosphere after his appearance with Arpaio at an immigration event in Arizona. This has the added benefit of helping to keep the Department of Justice off Arpaio's back.

Secretary of State: We know that Trump thinks that Hillary Clinton was the worst secretary of state in American history. He clearly wants the opposite of that. So how about Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has repeatedly praised? He's pretty opposite.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Ivanka Trump. Public housing is basically just a no-frills hotel, right?

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Dr. Oz.

Secretary of Transportation: Christophe Georges, president of Bentley Motors.

Secretary of Energy: Manoj Bhargava.

Secretary of Education: Michael Sexton, former president of Trump University, which was a thing.

Secretary of Agriculture: Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Fazio, Trump's golf course architect. Who knows more about proper watering and vegetation maintenance than this guy? Also, the imminent desertification of swaths of California sounds much better if you think about the process as "the creation of challenging new sand bunkers."

Secretary of the Treasury: Donald Trump. Sure, it's more common for the president to appoint someone else to this position, but who's better at managing money than Donald Trump? No one. He's the best.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Donald Trump. Sure, it's more common to etc., etc. But who cares more about the veterans than Donald Trump? No one.

Secretary of Defense: Donald Trump. Sure, etc., etc., etc., ISIS, etc. No one.

Secretary of Labor: Position will be left unfilled.   } 

 

Carson camp walks back support for Trump's disputed 9/11 celebration claim CNN { Actually, in eg., Weehawken, n.j., there was celebration; but, less palatable for american consumption, was/is the reality that the celebrators were israeli operatives … There was, to be sure, celebration worldwide ( ie., China’s chairman replayed the plane footage over and over again, etc…. then, of course, for the neo-cons, a dream come true … that Pearl Harbor event they’ve been documented to have so longed for … and, for those nations the objects of misguided wayward american missiles … celebration in jersey city, hudson county, n.j.? … jersey city, n.j. is one of those proverbial ‘armpits of the earth’ in a pervasively corrupt county in pervasively corrupt defacto mob-controlled new jersey (mob gangs into and entrenched in every process – t_rump knows only too well) … then of course the radical muslim clerics, etc….(Egypt's new president vows to free blind sheik from Jersey City ... The Jersey Journal - NJ.com-Jun 29, 2012 ... vowed before a crowd of thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square today to work for the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Jersey City sheik )… )

Mossad – The Israeli Connection To 911  ... being involved in the terror attacks of 9/11. ... from a phony moving company in Weehawken, N.J., ... The Israeli agents were later returned to Israel on ...     http://rense.com/general64/moss.htm  ‘…Shortly after the destruction of the twin towers, radio news reports described five "Middle Eastern men" being arrested in New Jersey after having been seen videotaping and celebrating the explosive "collapses" of the WTC. These men, from a phony moving company in Weehawken, N.J., turned out to be agents of Israeli military intelligence, Mossad. Furthermore, their "moving van" tested positive for explosives. Dominic Suter, the Israeli owner of Urban Moving Systems, the phony "moving company," fled in haste, or was allowed to escape, to Israel before FBI agents could interrogate him. The Israeli agents were later returned to Israel on minor visa violations…’

 

'SNL' on high alert for Trump appearance...

11-7-15: t_rump wants to make america great again … does Saturday Night Live … wow … that’s worth a laugh or two … yes, t_rump’s effectively saying the joke’s on you!

{Think about it … seriously … would any of the historically great leaders/presidents have so exercised such poor judgment to garner attention to his/her self by resorting to a comedy show starring appearance/performance in these dire, perilous times … YES, T_RUMP’S A JOKE/JOKER! }

1-26-16: t_rump: ‘…my supporters are smart and loyal…I could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone and they’d still support me…my poll numbers wouldn’t change’… {When I first heard this sick, outlandish, psychopathic quote I was reluctant to comment upon/post it thinking it must be slickly out of context…it’s not!…as a matter of fact, it’s even worse in context…he meant it!…to be sure, he rivals hitler with his similarly sick devotees buying into his ‘psychopathy’…(so over the top that even the presence of the full moon can’t justify trump’s dangerous lunacy-don’t forget, nuclear weapons exacerbate a globally perilous and precarious doomsday scenario…(how embarrassing for trump supporters, backers, apologists and particularly, america! ….. smart … supporters?… How ‘bout deaf, dumb, and blind … like those who ignored what balanced, intelligent people warned of psychopath hitler, failed to understand the broad/far-reaching implications of hitler’s modus operandi, and failed to see the hitlerian insanity in plain sight)}

 

1-29-16: Bully/misogynist trump runnin’ scared … ducks the fearless Megyn Kelly who won’t be intimidated by trump and his crazies (3-15-16: trump punks out ... again ... runs from debate ... typical coward ) … instead, he slickly teams up with a similarly self-interested slick, more familiar greasy guinea/wop (yeah … he likes the way they count … $8 for themselves, 5 cents for others … and convenient memories to maximize their take – don’t forget ill douche-bag, il Duce, the fascist deigo italian friend of hitler named mussolini) to deflect attention from his cowardice (t_rump  goes after those girls: but Megyn Kelly fears no evil … ‘blood from her eyes and other body parts’ … a disparagement of women, to be sure; but as well, more importantly, for those in the know, a veiled threat meant to intimidate - not that t_rump would actually bloody them but some mob minion of one of the extant ny/nj entrenched old gangs with whom he’s ingratiated himself…) t_rump attacks Carly Fiorina’s looks … Fiorina rose from secretary to CEO in Fortune 500 Companies … surely a ‘corporate Horatio Alger story’ that could inspire any woman or man … t_rump’s ‘pre-greased palms’ $300 million (when dollars were dollars) headstart in n.y/n.j. gangland/national drainland, font of corruption/ill-gotten gains could not possibly rival her accomplishment … Looks? … That pelt atop t_rump’s otherwise bald head is preposterous … a total joke worthy of carnival exposure … I believe it’s probably made of his own hair, so he can say (as he did) that it’s his own hair … He’s been obsessing about his (going/growing) baldness since back in the days of his Ivana marriage (

‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell ) … Additionally, he had liposuction and would require ‘lights out’ before ‘conjugal bliss’ so embarrassed was he of his unshapely, flabby body (id.) .

3-15-16: trump punks out ... again ... runs from debate ... As a matter of candor/accuracy, in light of his non-

 

hannity, anti-trump [almost negated by his qualified 'he likes trump' (as a person who has always been nice to

 

him)]; but is, according to Marc Levin (redeemed), unqualified and essentially, beyond the rhetoric (bulls**t), a

 

mainstream candidate based on actions/positions/contributions. Indeed, he provides trump's own ridiculous

 

words when asked who trump consults regarding ie., foreign policy, etc.; viz., he 'consults himself'... Wow! ...

 

Think about it ... After sounding like a hitlerian, pandering, demagogic fool in offending more than half the world

 

making more precarious america's already precarious domestic and international position ... Think! ... Other

 

than unprecedented outrageous, divisive incivility fomented by trump, nothing of substance has been

 

discussed. The 'art of the con' as per 'the donald'. Great entertainment, so typically trumpish his interviews are

 

much like one would expect from 'Entertainment Tonight'. trump says he 'consults himself'... hmmm ... really,

 

don ... Which self, don? ... {3-11-16: uncle ben carson, previously referred to as pathological by trump himself

 

(takes one to know one, huh ben) has endorsed trump saying there’re (at least) two trumps. Whoa … You mean

 

in addition to at least a narcissistic personality disorder, trump suffers from a dissociative identity

 

disorder/schizophrenia? … Will the real primary (technical ‘term of art’ in psychiatry relative to dissociative

 

identity disorders) donald trump please stand up  … }

 

 

trump Apparatchik Charged With Battery Against Female Journalist-trump Defends/Supports – Bully Boy Misogynists

Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump's Campaign Manager, Is ...

New York Times-Mar 29, 2016

Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery Tuesday by the police in Jupiter, Fla., who ...

Piers Morgan Tells Reporter Accusing Corey Lewandowski of ...
Mother Jones-Mar 30, 2016

Trump aide charged with misdemeanor battery vs. ex-Breitbart reporter
Highly Cited-Palm Beach Post-Mar 29, 2016

Trump campaign manager arrested, charged with battery of journalist
Opinion-Jerusalem Post Israel News-Mar 29, 2016

Trump Campaign Manager Charged With Misdemeanor Battery
Blog-Slate Magazine (blog)-Mar 31, 2016

 

Trump Campaign Plunges Into 'Hunger Games'

 

trump Desperation – trump’s mobster mash/strong arm pressure/approach

Trump Pal Roger Stone: 'Well Disclose The Hotels And Room Numbers Of Delegates... We'll Tell You Who The Culprits Are'... Reporter: 'Every Bit As Threatening' As Anything From Iraq, Iran, Burma...

{Please excuse the less than adequate yahoo search links … yahoo has basically become obsolete and a big disappointment!}

·        Roger Stone threatens to send Donald Trump supporters to ...

·        www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and...

·        We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly ... Heilemann held with former Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone on Monday ...

·        Donald Trump proxy Roger Stone openly threatens GOP delegates ...

·        www.salon.com/2016/04/05/donald_trump_proxy_roger_stone...

·        Donald Trump proxy Roger Stone openly threatens GOP delegates who are thinking of brokering convention

·        Roger Stone: We'll Name the Delegates Trying to...

·        www.weeklystandard.com/roger-stone-well-name-the...

·        Roger Stone is encouraging Donald Trump ... 2016-04-05T16:01 2016-04-05T16:01 Roger Stone: We'll Name the Delegates Trying to 'Steal' Nomination from ...

·        Could Donald Trump surrogate Roger Stone be charged with ...

·        www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/...

·        Could Donald Trump surrogate Roger Stone be charged ... email address. ... News Channel on Tuesday that Stone’s threat to publicize delegates’ hotel room ...

·        Trump ally Roger Stone threatens harassment of...

·        www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/trump_ally_roger...

·        Apr 05, 2016 · Trump ally Roger Stone threatens ... We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the ...

·        Roger Stone Threatens To Sic Trump Voters On ...

·        talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/roger-stone-steal-trump...

·        Apr 04, 2016 · Roger Stone, an informal adviser ... "We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal. If you're ...

·        Roger Stone: The Stone Zone

·        stonezone.com/article.php?id=485

·        Political Punditry and Observation from veteran political strategist Roger Stone. ... Drama Of A Brokered Convention. ... for addresses by both Ford ...

·        Roger Stone: Cruz Likely to Win Wisconsin, But Trump Can Get ...

·        www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/roger-stone-cruz-win-wisconsin...

·        ... Donald Trump supporter Roger Stone told Newsmax TV, ... he's got to come out of here with some delegates." Wisconsin is must-win for Cruz, ...

·        Roger Stone: ‘We’ll Disclose Hotels & Room...

·        grabien.com/story.php?id=52700

·        Roger Stone: ‘We’ll Disclose ... We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal. If you're from ...

·        Roger Stone: We’ll disclose the hotel room number...

·        hotair.com/archives/2016/04/05/roger-stone-w

·        Apr 04, 2016 · Roger Stone: We’ll disclose ... imagine Cruz’s spokesman encouraging mobs of angry Cruz fans to show up at Trump delegates’ doors for reciprocal ...

{Please excuse the less than adequate yahoo search links … yahoo has basically become obsolete and a big disappointment!}

PUNISH THE WOMEN
·  Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/...trump-abortion-women-punishment...

Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For Women Who Abort Men should be all right, though.

 

·  Donald Trump, Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then ...

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-abortion-foe...

Donald Trump, Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then Recants

·  Punish the Woman, Trump, Abortion News

·         They can only punish the woman: This is the truth about enforcing illegal abortion — charging the doctor is just a ...

Salon.com6 days ago

·         This is all the proof we need: Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican who wants to punish women for abortion

Salon.com6 days ago

·         Anti-Abortion Movement Panics Over Possible Choice Between Clinton And Trump

The Huffington Post4 days ago

More Punish the Woman, Trump, Abortion Headlines

·  Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/...trump-abortion-women-punishment...

Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For Women Who Abort Men should be all right, though.

·        {Please excuse the less than adequate yahoo search links … yahoo has basically become obsolete and a big disappointment!}
trump Encouraging/Inciting Violence
Donald Trump Encourages Violence At His Rallies....

·        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-violence_us_56e1f16fe4b0b25c91815913

·        Mar 10, 2016 ... Donald Trump's rallies have been scenes of pretty nasty violence and racism. ... Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. ... “I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell ya,” he said of a protester on Feb. ... at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, a city historically known for a strong Ku Klux Klan ...

·       

 

 

Donald Trump Says His Supporters Should 'Hit Back'...

·        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-protesters_us_56e2da10e4b0b25c918198c2

·        Mar 11, 2016 ... Donald Trump Says His Supporters Should 'Hit Back' At Protesters More Often ... Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.” ... We had a couple big strong powerful guys, doing damage to people. ... Michelle Fields by the arm to get her out of the way, nearly knocking her to the ground.

·       

 

 

Trump campaign dogged by violent incidents at...

·        http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/11/donald-trump-campaign-claims-violence-rallies

·        Mar 11, 2016 ... On one occasion, he even pledged to pay legal fees for those who ... I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise, I promise,” Trump said in a ... And we had a couple big, strong, powerful guys doing damage to ... grabbed her by the arm, so hard that he left bruises, and yanked her down to the ground.

·       

 

 

Trump considers paying legal bills for man who...

·        http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/politics/3985930-trump-considers-paying-legal-bills-man-who-punched-protester

·        Mar 13, 2016 ... Trump considers paying legal bills for man who punched protester ... a strong arm, at least, let me tell you, it can be very damaging,” Trump said. As for the legal fees, he said, “I've actually instructed my people to look into it.” ... “When I see somebody out swinging his fists, I say 'Get 'em the hell out of here.

·       

 

 

John McGraw: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know |...

·        http://heavy.com/news/2016/03/john-mcgraw-donald-trump-supporter-fan-mugshot-photos-cowboy-video-assault-black-protester-rally-north-carolina/

·        Mar 10, 2016 ... Jones Says He Was at the Trump Rally as a 'Social Experiment' ... The Cumberland County Sheriff Earl “Moose” Butler issued a strong statement ... Trump's campaign manager of violently grabbing her by the arm after a news conference. ..... I will pay for his legal fees and other equally inciting statements.

·       

 

 

Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski's...

·        http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/trump-campaign-manager-corey-lewandowskis-strong-possible-defense-to-the-simple-battery-charge/

·        Mar 29, 2016 ... And it turns out, according to Florida criminal defense attorneys LawNewz.com spoke with, Lewandowski might have a strong defense. ... First, Florida law says that misdemeanor battery includes: ... that he was forced to grab her arm because he worried that she would inflict harm on others or Donald Trump ...

·       

 

 

The Latest: Trump jokes about charge vs. campaign...

·        http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/3/381168

·        Mar 29, 2016 ... But Trump said he would not do it "because it would destroy a man's life. ... Michelle Fields, a former reporter for Breibart, filed charges that Lewandowski pulled her arm ... Lewandowski has retained an attorney in West Palm Beach. .... Trump is threatening to block to force Mexico to pay for a border wall are ...

Trump Tells Crowd He’ll Pay Legal Fees if They ‘Knock the Crap Out of’ Protesters 
Trump Pal Roger Stone: 'Well Disclose The Hotels And Room Numbers Of Delegates... We'll Tell You Who The Culprits Are'... Reporter: 'Every Bit As Threatening' As Anything From Iraq, Iran, Burma...

Trump Campaign Plunges Into 'Hunger Games'

 

·        {Please excuse the less than adequate yahoo search links … yahoo has basically become obsolete and a big disappointment!}

 

 

Trump Tells Crowd He’ll Pay Legal Fees if They ‘Knock the ...

·        www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/02/01/trump-tells-crowd-he...

·        Trump Tells Crowd He’ll Pay Legal Fees if They ‘Knock the Crap Out of’ Protesters Preparing to Throw Tomatoes. ... Obama Says He Wants Tougher Laws on Phones ...

·        ·     

 

 

Donald Trump Says He Might Pay Legal Fees For Man Who Sucker ...

·        www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-legal-fees-punch...

·        Donald Trump Says He Might Pay Legal Fees For Man Who Sucker-Punched A ... Donald Trump is a ... Donald Trump Says He Might Pay Legal Fees For Man Who Sucker ...

·        ·   

Trump Says He'll Pay Legal Fees News

·        ·     

 

 

Donald Trump on paying legal fees for punch-thrower ...

·        www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-legal-fees-punch...

·        TRUMP: I'll consider paying legal fees for the man who allegedly threw a sucker punch at one of my ... Follow Business Insider: ... I'll pay the legal fees."

·        ·     

 

 

Trump says he may pay legal fees of supporter who sucker ...

·        www.yahoo.com/politics/trump-pay-legal-fees...

·        Trump says he may pay legal fees of supporter ... paying the legal fees of a man who was arrested ... if he would pay McGraw’s legal fees if ...

·        ·     

 

 

Donald Trump Said He'll Pay Your Legal Fees if You...

·        mic.com/articles/134067/donald-trump-said-he-ll-pay-your...

·        Donald Trump Said He'll Pay Your Legal Fees if You "Knock the ... I will pay for the legal fees. I ... He is based in New York and can be reached at tmckay@mic ...

·        ·     

 

 

Donald Trump Says He'll Pay Legal Fees for Anyone...

·        news.iheart.com/onair/...trump-says-hell-pay-legal-14340085

·        Read about Donald Trump Says He'll Pay Legal Fees for Anyone Who Does This. | Chris Michaels | iHeartRadio

·        ·     

 

 

Donald Trump Says He Might Pay Legal Fees of...

·        www.towleroad.com/2016/03/donald-trump-legal-fees

·        Donald Trump says that he's looking into paying the ... Donald Trump Says He Might Pay Legal Fees of Supporter Who ... I promise you, I’ll pay for their legal fees ...

·        ·     

 

 

Trump once said he would pay legal fees for ... - Washington Post

·        www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/...

Donald Trump reverses course on paying legal fees for ... if Trump himself wanted to pay the legal fees, he'd likely ... You’ll also receive from The Washington Post:

·        ·     

 

 

Donald Trump 'may pay legal fees for supporter who sucker ...

·        www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3490126/Trump-admits...

·        ... and says he may PAY legal fees for 78-year-old supporter who sucker-punched black protester ... I'll tell you,' Trump said at the time. ...


Trump Campaign Plunges Into 'Hunger Games'

 

Donald Trump hits all-time low in the polls that really matter  3-25-16

Entertainment

Former Ted Cruz Staffer Slams 'Trash' Reports That They Had An Affair

[Keep in mind, despite the pro-trump/false hit piece against Ted Cruz, trump has previously admitted and even bragged about his affairs while married; and even, those affairs with married women. (And, that included the then wife, Robin Givens of mike tyson, who trump had begun to ‘manage’ – tyson’s decline including, amazingly, tyson’s current support of ‘citizen candidate’ trump. Wow!) ]

TheBlaze.com

Trump, National Enquirer CEO 'Have Been Friends For Years'

Daily Caller   An October expose from New York Magazine details Donald Trump's close, personal relationship with the National Enquirer. The article claims that Trump's “campaign provided information that was used” in a hit piece against Ben Carson when the two were ...

 

trump Reveals Self in Asserting Women Should be Punished for Abortions {Handlers React and trump disingenuously/fraudulently tries to Cover}

Punish the women
·      

 

 

 

Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/...trump-abortion-women-punishment...

Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For Women Who Abort Men should be all right, though.

 

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Donald Trump, Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then ...

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-abortion-foe...

Donald Trump, Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then Recants

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Punish the Woman, Trump, Abortion News

·         They can only punish the woman: This is the truth about enforcing illegal abortion — charging the doctor is just a ...

Salon.com6 days ago

·         This is all the proof we need: Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican who wants to punish women for abortion

Salon.com6 days ago

·         Anti-Abortion Movement Panics Over Possible Choice Between Clinton And Trump

The Huffington Post4 days ago

More Punish the Woman, Trump, Abortion Headlines

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Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/...trump-abortion-women-punishment...

Donald Trump Goes Full Anti-Woman, Suggests 'Punishment' For Women Who Abort Men should be all right, though.

 

 

 

1-23-16: t_rump: ‘The NFL like america has gotten soft’ {… Wow! How does he get away with this stuff, not to mention the illegal stuff … oh well, that’s life ‘On the Waterfront’ (in new york/new jersey) … How ‘bout t_rump be given the ball for one play with an NFL team defending … they’d be carrying him off the field on a stretcher (likely unconscious / with broken bones) or in a bodybag … Then there’s Ted Cruz, the new birther/Hispanic/canuck focus of the don’s anti-immigration demagoguery … Yes, new york don, you can allude to / point out that you’re a royal anchor baby to Scottish-born Mary Queen of Scots who lost her head attempting to ‘depose’ (of)Queen(s,ny) Elizabeth … (Warren? your ny wall street gang’s antagonist?… no don, she’s a Bostonian of new not old England/Britain) …  The donald … there will always be a place for you on Saturday Night Live from new york … and, word has it, you’ll be a recurring guest on Weekend Update along with guido sarducci and a reprised Roseanne Rosanna Danna along with Tony Soprano … yes, new york don, as always, your set is already set … ‘On the Waterfront’ with new york values and all the fixins’…}


1-23-16: HOW EMBARRASSING FOR CHRISTIAN EVANGELICALS, THE NATION, ET CETERA! … Art of a deal?
Sarah Palin: ‘t_rump has a track record of (new york/new jersey)success’pool/drain ‘On the Waterfront’ …

Having told Jimmy Kimmel that he "would love to" appoint Sarah Palin to his cabinet, The Washington Post asks (and answers), just what would a trump cabinet look like?

‘AN UTTER FRAUD. AN ABSOLUTE AND UTTER FRAUD,’ MCGINNISS CALLS PALIN IN AN INTERVIEW ABOUT THE BOOK WITH NBC.

Joe McGinniss Sarah Palin Book, 'The Rogue,' Makes Controversial Claims About Former Alaska Governor  ‘Joe McGinniss's new book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, hits bookstores next week, but its controversial claims about the former Alaska governor are already making waves.

In the book, McGinniss writes that Palin had a one-night stand in 1987 with future NBA basketball player Glen Rice nine months before she married her husband Todd. He quotes a friend who said Palin "had a fetish for black guys for a while."

"She was a gorgeous woman. Super nice. I was blown away by her," Rice tells McGinniss in the book, NBC reports. "Afterward, she was a big crush that I had."

McGinniss's book also alleges that Palin had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner, Brad Hanson, in the mid-1990s, and snorted cocaine off a 55-gallon oil drum while snowboarding.

"An utter fraud. An absolute and utter fraud," McGinniss calls Palin in an interview about the book with NBC.

"At best, she's a hypocrite," McGinniss tells NBC's Savannah Guthrie. "At worst, she's a vindictive hypocrite."

McGinniss famously moved into a house next door to Palin's Wasilla, Alaska home to write his book -- prompting the Palins to accuse him of stalking them. They built a high fence along their property to protect their privacy.

In response to McGinniss's book, Todd Palin gave a statement to NBC saying that McGinniss "spent the last year interviewing marginal figures with an axe to grind in order to churn out a hit piece to satisfy his own creepy obsession with my wife."

"I'd ask the fathers and husbands of America to consider our privacy when one summer day I found this guy on the deck of the rental property, just 18 feet away next door to us, staring like a creep at my wife while she mowed the lawn in her shorts," Palin said.

McGinniss says that anything he learned about Palin by living next door did not make it into the book, but he does become a character in the story himself.

The New York Times writes in its review:

Soon Mr. McGinniss is settling in to enjoy the fuss his mere presence has created. "Normally, for a news story to continue beyond the first 24-hour news cycle, something newsworthy must occur," he writes loftily, but "The Rogue" is filled with proof to the contrary. What was his hate mail like? He quotes it. What did Glenn Beck call him? That’s here too. Who took umbrage at this venom and chose to help him? One man offered him a hideout, despite Mr. McGinniss's slight skepticism about his motives. "But you don’t know me," Mr. McGinniss protested.

McGinniss's book is scheduled to hit bookstores on Tuesday, Sept. 20.’

The Rogue: Searching For The Real Sarah Palin' Cover Revealed Call it Palin Noir. Joe McGinniss' upcoming biography of Sarah Palin has a cover design more fitting for a detective novel. It has a bold...

Joe McGinniss, Palin Neighbor & Author, Leaving Wasilla To Write Book ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sarah Palin can take down the fence. Palin's neighbor of three months on Wasilla's Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss, is packing his...

Bristol Palin Interview Accidentally Reveals Mother's 15 Abortions  www.theonion.comWASILLA, AK—Sarah Palin's political team was forced to do emergency damage control Monday after the former Alaska governor's daughter Bristol accidentally divulged on live television that her mother has undergone at least 15 abortions over the past 30 years. "She's always telling me how special I am, especially considering the five or six babies she aborted before I was born," Palin, 20, said during a CNN interview in which she was asked if she thought her mother would make a good president. "Then of course there were the twins she aborted shortly after having me, another four abortions after Willow somehow survived hers—but anyway, she's a wonderful mom. She just gets pregnant a lot and doesn't always want to have the baby." Palin also commended her mother's strength in carrying three babies with Down syndrome to term, and then even choosing not to give Trig up for adoption like the others.

1-26-16: t_rump: ‘…my supporters are smart and loyal…I could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone and they’d still support me…my poll numbers wouldn’t change’… {When I first heard this sick, outlandish, psychopathic quote I was reluctant to comment upon/post it thinking it must be slickly out of context…it’s not!…as a matter of fact, it’s even worse in context…he meant it!…to be sure, he rivals hitler with his similarly sick devotees buying into his ‘psychopathy’…(so over the top that even the presence of the full moon can’t justify trump’s dangerous lunacy-don’t forget, nuclear weapons exacerbate a globally perilous and precarious doomsday scenario…(how embarrassing for trump supporters, backers, apologists and particularly, america …!)}

TRUMP: Ryan budget ‘a disaster, a joke’ { What did they expect from Paul Ryan at this juncture/this late date? … Did they expect him to muster /conjure up t_rump’s prospective (who else could it be?) Secretariot Harry Potter who is purported to know how to use a magic wand to solve longstanding intractable problems that have financially benefited mightily the fashionably political but conveniently late complainers; the purported previous and undeniably lucrative (for them) ‘cure’ being the exacerbation of the extant Gordian Knot of a problem. Congressman cuts through 2,000 pages -- with sword!  …  Well, it worked for Alexander the Great … My, my how times have changed …}

12-18-15: LIMBAUGH: Disband Republican Party... { What did they expect from Paul Ryan at this juncture/this late date? … Did they expect him to muster /conjure up t_rump’s prospective (who else could it be?) Secretariot Harry Potter who is purported to know how to use a magic wand to solve longstanding intractable problems that have financially benefited mightily the fashionably political but conveniently late complainers; the purported previous and undeniably lucrative (for them) ‘cure’ being the exacerbation of the extant Gordian Knot of a problem. Congressman cuts through 2,000 pages -- with sword!  …  Well, it worked for Alexander the Great … My, my how times have changed …}

CARSON FIGHTS BACK

Post Politics

Ben Carson defends his telling of an informal offer from West Point

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/06/ben-carsons-allies-defend-west-point-story-he-got-an-offer-did-not-apply   { Come on … let’s call a spade a spade here … Uncle ben, now having relegated himself to pushing candied rice … I haven’t criticized him owing to my respect for the medical profession and expected, disingenuous, pathetic race card or similar knee-jerk reaction … but, he’s done! }

{ Part and parcel of an appointment to West Point is a ‘recommendation’ from a member of Congress … Mine was Congressman Widnall, Republican, n.j.. I have the highest regard for the Academies; but especially, for West Point. }

{ carson, making the rounds (in cleanup/repair mode), appears to be crying foul in terms of an alleged ‘double standard’ as applied to scrutiny of him compared with obama … no, uncle ben … it’s a ‘fool me once/twice’ type of thing; viz., fool me once (obama, holder, et als), shame on them … fool me twice (ben), shame on me (us)… ( And, I have to say as others have, the ‘stuff’ from carson’s own mouth is unequivocally pretty weird by any standard and should not be ignored …) }

 

 

Gov. Mike Pence endorses Ted Cruz  p Indianapolis Star {Keep in mind, even new yorker giuliani did not and upon being ‘called’ on it, would not endorse trump though supporting trump and saying he’d vote for trump … Other former Mayors, ie., Ed Koch, Michael Bloomberg, in the ‘new york know’ were/are negative on trump … guliani? … well, native new yorker, his father an enforcer for the mafia … , would indeed find it difficult to rationalize not supporting trump … }

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence threw his support behind U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz Friday afternoon, just days before Indiana's critical Tuesday primary.

 

Mike Pence endorses Ted Cruz
In-Depth-CNN-12 hours ago

 

Indiana Governor Mike Pence Endorses Ted Cruz
In-Depth-The Atlantic-10 hours ago

 

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence Backs Ted Cruz for President
Blog-Wall Street Journal (blog)-12 hours ago

 

 

 

 

Boehner’s Unreasonable Attack on Cruz http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434736/ted-cruz-john-boehners-attack-was-wrong  { boner’s a dick … quite seriously, he’s also a failed house speaker … by the numbers or any other criterion … earliest sign should have been the moment he was handed the gavel and a torrent of tears erupted … his image, projected visage is realistically that he is at least half in bag 24/7 … he always has that vacuous look of bewilderment that invariably is the natural concomitant of intoxication; yet, we know that can’t be so … quite simply, it’s just that ‘he’s all that’ … DUMB! … but those free mar ill lago golf junkets certainly had their intended effect … look at the dire results … to the state of the nation in light of every broken promise by boner … }

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com

 

Trump making case to GOP insiders amid chaotic rally scene Associated Press

 {What case? … That he’s unequivocally the corrupt chaos conman king? … who has turned the process, as he invariably does, into a global and domestic embarrassment … that he loves the uneducated (unwitting marks/dupes that they are) who would ultimately among many other expendable, disenfranchised groups, find themselves much like the Jewish people in nazi Germany as reality ‘trumps’ wild, empty rhetoric without moral or constitutionally/legally founded compass, basis, restraint … I am absolutely convinced this, his  strategy is right out of adolph’s ‘blood-red linings playbook’  … how can people ignore his confirmed obsessive fascination with the furer’s speeches that, of all historic personages, he listened to, over and overagain… ‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell )

 

 

 

 

Trump making case to GOP insiders amid chaotic rally scene Associated Press

 {What case? … That he’s unequivocally the corrupt chaos conman king? … who has turned the process, as he invariably does, into a global and domestic embarrassment … that he loves the uneducated (unwitting marks/dupes that they are) who would ultimately among many other expendable, disenfranchised groups, find themselves much like the Jewish people in nazi Germany as reality ‘trumps’ wild, empty rhetoric without moral or constitutionally/legally founded compass, basis, restraint … I am absolutely convinced this, his  strategy is right out of adolph’s ‘blood-red linings playbook’  … how can people ignore his confirmed obsessive fascination with the furer’s speeches that, of all historic personages, he listened to, over and overagain… ‘Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump’ by John R. O'Donnell ) }

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clinton: Trump is 'dangerously incoherent,' 'temperamentally unfit' to be president  Washington Post [ Indeed he is … all that … BAD! … Hillary is Spot On and Right ! ]

 

SAN DIEGO - Hillary Clinton lacerated Donald Trump in a much-anticipated foreign policy speech Thursday, effectively launching her general-election campaign by declaring him “temperamentally unfit” to lead the most powerful nation in the world.

 

THE 13 BEST LINES FROM HILLARY CLINTON'S BLISTERING SPEECH ABOUT DONALD TRUMP

"There's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf-course deal.​"

By Prachi Gupta

  Jun 2, 2016

With her eyes toward the general election, on Thursday, Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton took aim at Donald Trump. In a scathing, uncharacteristically blunt speech delivered in San Diego, Clinton addressed America's national security and, specifically, the threats America will face if Trump becomes commander in chief. Through Clinton and Trump have been taking jabs at each other all year, her remarks Thursday were the strongest attack yet against the presumptive Republican nominee. Here are her 13 most powerful lines:

 

1. "Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different — they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas — just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies."

 

2. "This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes — because it's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin."

 

3. "We cannot put the security of our children and grandchildren in Donald Trump's hands. We cannot let him roll the dice with America."

4. "He says he doesn't have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has — quote — 'a very good brain.''"

5. "He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia."

6. "It's no small thing when he calls Mexican immigrants 'rapists and murderers.' We're lucky to have two friendly neighbors on our land borders. Why would he want to make one of them an enemy?"

7. " There's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf-course deal. But it doesn't work like that in world affairs. Just like being interviewed on the same episode of 60 Minutes as Putin was, is not the same thing as actually dealing with Putin. So the stakes in global statecraft are infinitely higher and more complex than in the world of luxury hotels. We all know the tools Donald Trump brings to the table — bragging, mocking, composing nasty tweets — I'm willing to bet he's writing a few right now."

8. "And I have to say, I don't understand Donald's bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America. He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength. He said, 'You've got to give Kim Jong Un credit' for taking over North Korea — something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie. And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he'd give him an A. Now, I'll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants. I just wonder how anyone could be so wrong about who America's real friends are. Because it matters. If you don't know exactly who you're dealing with, men like Putin will eat your lunch."

9. "A Trump presidency would embolden ISIS. We cannot take that risk. This isn't reality television — this is actual reality."

10. "So it really matters that Donald Trump says things that go against our deepest-held values. It matters when he says he'll order our military to murder the families of suspected terrorists. During the raid to kill bin Laden, when every second counted, our SEALs took the time to move the women and children in the compound to safety. Donald Trump may not get it, but that's what honor looks like. And it also matters when he makes fun of disabled people, calls women 'pigs,' proposes banning an entire religion from our country, or plays coy with white supremacists. America stands up to countries that treat women like animals, or people of different races, religions, or ethnicities as less human."

11. "What happens to the moral example we set — for the world and for our own children — if our president engages in bigotry? And by the way, Mr. Trump — every time you insult American Muslims or Mexican immigrants, remember that plenty of Muslims and immigrants serve and fight in our armed forces. Donald Trump could learn something from them."

12. "Now imagine Donald Trump sitting in the Situation Room, making life-or-death decisions on behalf of the United States. Imagine him deciding whether to send your spouses or children into battle. Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he's angry, but America's entire arsenal. Do we want him making those calls — someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism? Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?"

13. "This election is a choice between two very different visions of America. One that's angry, afraid, and based on the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline. The other is hopeful, generous, and confident in the knowledge that America is great — just like we always have been."

 

 

 

Donald Trump threatens Amazon as payback for Washington Post articles he doesn't like

Updated by Matthew Yglesias on May 13, 2016, 8:30 a.m. ET

 

 



 

Mitt Romney suggests there's a "bombshell" in Donald Trump's taxes CBS News

'It's none of your business': George Stephanopoulos and Donald Trump have testy exchange on tax returns

ABC's George Stephanopoulos pressed Donald Trump on Friday in one of the most combative exchanges yet over the Manhattan billionaire's tax returns. "It's none of your business," Trump said when the ABC host asked about his tax rate. The presumptive GOP nominee has faced increased scrutiny over releasing his tax returns since he told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wasn't planning on releasing them ahead of the election, citing an ongoing audit.

Business Insider

Why It's Important For Trump To Release His Tax Returns

The Huffington Post

 

Donald Trump threatens Amazon as payback for Washington Post articles he doesn't like

Thursday night, speaking with friendly Fox News host Sean Hannity, Donald Trump outlined his theory that his presidential campaign attracts journalistic scrutiny from the Washington Post as part of a larger conspiracy to help Amazon avoid sales taxes and threatened to take revenge on the ecommerce giant if he is elected president. Specifically, Hannity asked Trump about a report that the Post is assigning 20 reporters to dig into the various phases of his life, and whether he is prepared for the kind of scrutiny that comes with a presidential campaign. Yeah - it's interesting that you say that, because every hour we're getting calls from reporters from the Washington Post asking ridiculous questions and I will tell you, this is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with murder tax-wise.  Trump just boasted that he pays as little in taxes as possible. Here’s why.

   Washington Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAWSUIT CHARGES DONALD TRUMP WITH RAPING A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL

 

David Mikkelson

Jun 23, 2016

 

http://www.snopes.com/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit

In late April 2016, rumors began to circulate online holding that Republican presidential Donald Trump had either been sued over, or arrested for, raping a teenaged girl. One of the earliest versions of the rumor was published on 2 May 2016 by the Winning Democrats web site, which reported that:

The first major scandal to hit the Trump campaign besides the typical “what a racist, such a sexist, yada yada yada,” came from a lawsuit stemming from the infamous sex parties held by billionaire and known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The woman named in the suit is Katie Johnson, who says Trump took her virginity in 1994 when she was only 13 and being held by Epstein as a slave.

Johnson says in the complaint that Trump and Epstein threatened her and her family with bodily harm if she didn’t comply with all of their disgusting demands. The Trump campaign has been on this immediately, calling it absolute nonsense and not even remotely true or possible.

Many aggregated reports cited a 28 April 2016 article that described the circumstances under which the lawsuit had been filed:

Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is fighting what could be the biggest election season bombshell yet — explosive court claims that he raped a woman when she was a teen.

The woman — identified as Katie Johnson — filed documents in a California court on April 26, accusing Trump and billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein of “sexual abuse under threat of harm” and “conspiracy to deprive civil rights,” RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.

She filed the lawsuit herself — without legal representation — and is suing for $100 million.

Most early iterations of the rumor mentioned a civil lawsuit, not criminal charges, but at some point around June 2016 the rumor evolved to suggest that Trump had been (or would imminently be) criminally charged with the rape of a young girl. A copy of the California lawsuit (filed on 26 April 2016) shared via the Scribd web site outlined the allegations, which included the accusation that Trump and another man had (over 20 years earlier) "sexually and physically" abused the then 13-year-old plaintiff and forced her "to engage in various perverted and depraved sex acts" (including "forcible rape") after luring her to a "series of underage sex parties" by promising her "money and a modeling career":

 

 

LAWSUIT CHARGES DONALD TRUMP WITH RAPING A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL

A civil suit against Donald Trump alleging he raped a 13-year-old girl was thrown out in California in May 2016 and refiled in New York in June 2016.

 

 

The filed court document was a "Complaint for Claim Relief Due to: Sexual Abuse Under Threat of Harm and Conspiracy to Deprive Civil Rights," and its claim for relief sought $100 million in damages:

 

As is commonly noted, anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason; the existence of a lawsuit is not itself evidence that proves the claims contained within it.

According to RadarOnline's initial reporting, the lawsuit filed in California on 26 April 2016 was dismissed over technical filing errors, with the plaintiff failing in her attempt to avoid incurring the cost of the litigation:

A judge recommended on April 29 that “Katie Johnson” should have to pay her own attorneys’ fees and court costs related to the $100 million lawsuit she brought against Trump and billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein over alleged sexual assault charges. Then on May 2, a U.S. District judge ordered the entire lawsuit thrown out.

“Johnson” had previously filed forms asking to be let off the hook for the costs of the lawsuit, claiming she had only $300 to her name ... such an allowance — known as in forma paupers — is only given in civil rights cases in California, and the judge ruled that she “failed to state a claim for relief” on a civil rights basis, even though she “utilized the form provided by the Central District of California for civil actions.”

“Even construing the ... pleading liberally, Plaintiff has not alleged any race-based or class-based animus against her, and consequently, her ... allegations fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,” the judge wrote ... the address listed on the paperwork leads to an abandoned property, and the phone number goes straight to voicemail.

On 20 June 2016, New York City-based blog Gothamist reported that the plaintiff had filed a similar complaint in a New York State federal court. In that filing, the plaintiff requested injunctive relief of $75,000 in damages (per Gothamist) along with fees:

A federal lawsuit filed in New York accuses Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl more than 20 years ago, at several Upper East Side parties hosted by convicted sex offender and notorious billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein.

The suit, first reported by the Real Deal, accuses Trump and Epstein of luring the anonymous plaintiff and other young women to four parties at Epstein's so-called Wexner Mansion at 9 East 71st Street. Epstein allegedly lured the plaintiff, identified in the suit only as Jane Doe, with promises of a modeling career and cash.

Another anonymous woman, identified in additional testimony as Tiffany Doe, corroborates Jane's allegations, testifying that she met Epstein at Port Authority, where he hired her to recruit other young girls for his parties. Trump had known Epstein for seven years in 1994 when he attended the parties at Wexner, according to the suit. He also allegedly knew that the plaintiff was 13 years old.

Jane Doe filed a similar suit in California in April, under the name Katie Johnson, also accusing Trump and Epstein of rape. That suit was dismissed on the grounds of improper paperwork — the address affiliated with her name was found to be abandoned. Today's suit confirms that the plaintiffs are one and the same.

The online outlet that first reported the second filing in New York in June 2016 explained why it might be allowed to proceed even though the statute of limitations for bringing suit has expired:

It should be noted that anyone can file a civil complaint in federal court. The statute of limitations in New York for civil rape cases is five years, but [the] complaint argues that the time limit should be waived, noting that the plaintiff was too frightened to report the abuse because Trump had threatened that if she did “her family would be physically harmed if not killed.”

“Both defendants let plaintiff know that each was a very wealthy, powerful man and indicated that they had the power, ability and means to carry out their threats,” the complaint claims.

A copy of the New York-based suit was also uploaded to Scribd, and in the second filing the plaintiff was represented by an attorney who had learned of her allegations via a gossip web site. In a statement attached to her filing, the plaintiff (i.e., Jane Doe) asserted:

I traveled by bus to New York City in June 1994 in the hope of starting a modeling career. I went to several modeling agencies but was told that I needed to put together a modeling portfolio before I would be considered. I then went to the Port Authority in New York City to start to make my way back home. There I met a woman who introduced herself to me as Tiffany. She told me about the parties and said that, if I would join her at the parties, I would be introduced to people who could get me into the modeling profession. Tiffany also told me I would be paid for attending.

The parties were held at a New York City residence that was being used by Defendant Jeffrey Epstein. Each of the parties had other minor females and a number of guests of Mr. Epstein, including Defendant Donald Trump at four of the parties I attended. I understood that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein knew I was 13 years old.

Defendant Trump had sexual contact with me at four different parties in the summer of 1994. On the fourth and final sexual encounter with Defendant Trump, Defendant Trump tied me to a bed, exposed himself to me, and then proceeded to forcibly rape me. During the course of this savage sexual attack, I loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop but he did not. Defendant Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted,

Immediately following this rape, Defendant Trump threatened me that, were I ever to reveal any of the details of Defendant Trump's sexual and physical abuse of me, my family and I wold be physically harmed if not killed.

The filing also included a statement from "Tiffany Doe" (i.e., the woman referenced in plaintiff's statement above who brought her to the parties) attesting that:

I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the Plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.

I personally witnessed the one occasion where Mr. Trump forced the Plaintiff and a 12-year-old female named Maria [to] perform oral sex on Mr. Trump and witnessed his physical abuse of both minors when they finished the act.

It was my job to personally witness and supervise encounters between the underage girls that Mr. Epstein hired and his guests.

 

 

Two more resignations hit Donald Trump's tumultuous campaign

Washington Post  DENVER - Donald Trump's campaign is in a tumultuous state, with at least two staffers resigning this week and joining a growing list of personnel who have parted ways with the campaign in recent months.

Related  Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016 »

GOP Operative Quits Trump Campaign Just Two Weeks Into The Job Huffington Post

Trump aide quits during third week on job, calls experience 'interesting' Politico

 

 

 

GOP Operative Quits Trump Campaign Just Weeks Into The Job

2 Resignations This Week

 

Donald Trump’s Communications Director Deletes Anti-Trump Tweets

 

 

‘The Stupidity Is Breathtaking’: Joe Scarborough Evaluates Trump

… Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

 

Trump Ramps Up Call For Torture: ‘We’re Going To Have To Do Things That Are Unthinkable’

 

 

Sorry, Trump — It’s Totally Not Illegal To Dump You In Cleveland

Anti-Trump Activists Face Convention Drubbing

Chaotic, Freewheeling And Unpredictable: Welcome To The Trump Convention

Aziz Ansari: Why Trump Makes Me Scared for My Family New York Times

 

Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump with Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl

 

 

 

hitler’s not trump’s only hero … of more recent vintage is … saddam hussein …yes you heard that right … ‘lovely man’ … hussein’s fascination with and respect for (mental case that he also was) the new york / new jersey mafia stereotypes spawned by ‘the godfather 1,2,3’ might  be the reason (there were numerous pictures of  the now very dead sad damned hussein toolin’ around in his guinea hat, wop gun in hand, etc… Donald Trump has heaped praise on Saddam Hussein amid Chilcot ...  Saddam Hussein`s favorite movie is said to be ``The Godfather,`` a stark portrayal of a megalomaniac Mafia don who brutally overcomes the odds to slay his enemies and become kingpin of the underworld…

Evening Standard-Jul 6, 2016

Donald Trump has praised former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness, telling supporters he killed terrorists “so good”.

Donald Trump Praises Brutal Dictator Saddam Hussein At North ...
PoliticusUSA-Jul 5, 2016

Trump Praises Saddam Hussein Again — This Time For Killing ...
Huffington Post-Jul 5, 2016

Trump says he admired Saddam Hussein only for how he killed ...
Los Angeles Times-Jul 6, 2016

Trump praises late Iraqi leader Saddam as terrorist killer
WKYT-Jul 6, 2016

 

Godfather Of The Middle East -...

articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-01-22/news/9101070074_1...

Jan 21, 1991 · Saddam Hussein`s favorite movie is said to be ``The Godfather,`` a ... Godfather Of The Middle East. ......

Godfather Of The Middle East

Saddam Hussein`s Sights Set On A Place In History

January 22, 1991|By William Neikirk.

Saddam Hussein`s favorite movie is said to be ``The Godfather,`` a stark portrayal of a megalomaniac Mafia don who brutally overcomes the odds to slay his enemies and become kingpin of the underworld…

Donald Trump praises Saddam Hussein again / Sunday...

www.sundayworld.com/news/news/donald-trump...

Donald Trump has again praised former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's ruthlessness, saying he killed...

 

News

Saddam's Sons

By Christopher Dickey On 10/20/02 at 8:00 PM

 

Saddam Hussein is reliably reported to be a fan of the "Godfather" movies. He can easily identify: he runs Iraq the way a mafia don uses his family to control a criminal enterprise. "Think of Iraq as Chicago and Saddam as a mob boss," says one U.S. intelligence source, "only with chemical and biological wea-pons." As the Bush administration prepares to try to take Saddam out, U.S. war planners and spymasters are intensely interested in the Iraqi strongman's family ties. If Saddam is killed or somehow cut off, power would most likely pass to his sons, Uday and Qusay. It is hard to imagine how, but Saddam's male offspring, say a wide variety of sources, could be worse than the father. Their life stories, as pieced together largely from the accounts of defectors, are Gothic in their monstrosity…

 

America's Trump nightmare has arrived The Guardian-May 3, 2016  Beaming at his audience on stage in the Trump Tower, he heaped lavish praise on people he's disparaged the most, from women – he's called ...

 

A distinctly American fascist seeks to exploit the Orlando massacre rabble.ca (blog)-Jun 15, 2016 ... have a dictator he wouldn't be a raver and ranter of the Mussolini/Hitler model. ... may indulge in some fairly ostentatious hand gestures, he is no stentorian orator. ... In his internationally televised speech, Trump quite bluntly ...

 

Readings on the Theme of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler  Berkeley Daily Planet-Mar 4, 2016 Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939 ... that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to orators ...

 

Bill Maher Compares Donald Trump to Hitler on 'Real Time' (Video) TheWrap-Mar 5, 2016  Bill Maher likened Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler on Friday's episode of ... “So I had one of Hitler's speeches translated into English, and I think ...

 

Did Donald Trump Really Keep A Copy Of Hitler's Speeches By His ...The Inquisitr-Dec 10, 2015 Did Donald Trump Really Keep A Copy Of Hitler's Speeches By His Bed? The Ex ... bewitched by there hypnotic madness of the prolific orator?

Donald Trump kept book of Hitler speeches, ex-wife said
The Queensland Times-Dec 8, 2015

 

 

 

THE MIND OF DONALD TRUMP

Narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity—a psychologist investigates how Trump’s extraordinary personality might shape his possible presidency.

By Dan P. McAdams  …Who, really, is Donald Trump? What’s behind the actor’s mask? I can discern little more than narcissistic motivations and a complementary personal narrative about winning at any cost. It is as if Trump has invested so much of himself in developing and refining his socially dominant role that he has nothing left over to create a meaningful story for his life, or for the nation. It is always Donald Trump playing Donald Trump, fighting to win, but never knowing why.

 

 

Donald Trump Accused Of Raping 13-Year-Old In 1994 Headlines & Global News-Jul 6, 2016 Donald Trump allegedly raped a 13-year-old when he allegedly forced ... The unnamed girl is in her 30s now, but she says the offenders knew she was ... She charges Trump of initiating sexual contact with her on four occasions. ... The lawsuit also said that Epstein raped her too and tried to strike her on the ...

Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein: Trump ...

 

 

Trump Faces Lawsuit Accusing Him of Raping 13-Year-Old GirlDemocracy Now!-Jul 1, 2016 Epstein has been jailed on charges of soliciting sex from a minor and has ... Donald Trump has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, which was ...

Why the Donald Trump child rape lawsuit is credible and can't be ...
Death and Taxes-Jun 30, 2016

 

 

Donald Trump Accused of Rape in Federal Court Lawsuit AlterNet-Jun 21, 2016A new lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court alleges that Donald Trump repeatedly raped a 13-year-old girl a little over 20 years ago. ... guilty in 2008 to charges involving soliciting sex from underage girls as young as 14.

Donald Trump accused of raping 13yo girl in new lawsuit  RT-Jun 22, 2016

 

Why The New Child Rape Case Filed Against Donald Trump Should ... Huffington Post-Jun 29, 2016  It is simply reporting the news that a lawsuit has been filed against Mr. Trump, ... (Mr. Trump's lawyer says the charges are “categorically untrue, completely .... after being convicted of misconduct with another underage girl.

 

WHY THE NEW CHILD RAPE CASE FILED AGAINST DONALD TRUMP SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED …

‘3. The new Jane Doe child rape claim against Mr. Trump is consistent with verifiable facts about Mr. Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein, and has a powerful witness statement attached to it.

A third woman accused Mr. Trump of rape very recently. According to the Daily Mail, a woman filed an April 2016 lawsuit claiming that when she was thirteen years old she was held as a sex slave to Mr. Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein. The woman claimed to have a witness, “Tiffany Doe,” to the incidents. She filed the case in pro per, that is, without the assistance of a lawyer.

The case was dismissed by the court for technical filing errors. She then obtained a lawyer and the case was modified and refiled in New York federal court, against Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein.

I’ve carefully reviewed this federal complaint. It is now much stronger than the one she filed on her own, which makes sense because she now has an experienced litigator representing her. Jane Doe says that as a thirteen year old, she was enticed to attend parties at the home of Jeffrey Epstein with the promise of money modeling jobs. Mr. Epstein is a notorious  “billionaire pedophile” who is now a Level 3 registered sex offender - the most dangerous kind, “a threat to public safety” — after being convicted of misconduct with another underage girl.

Jane Doe says that Mr. Trump “initiated sexual contact” with her on four occasions in 1994. Since she was thirteen at the time, consent is not an issue. If Mr. Trump had any type sexual contact with her in 1994, it was a crime.

On the fourth incident, she says Mr. Trump tied her to a bed and forcibly raped her, in a “savage sexual attack,” while she pleaded with him to stop. She says Mr. Trump violently struck her in the face. She says that afterward, if she ever revealed what he had done, Mr. Trump threatened that she and her family would be “physically harmed if not killed.” She says she has been in fear of him ever since.

New York’s five year statute of limitations on this claim - the legal deadline for filing — has long since run. However, Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Meagher, argues in his court filing that because she was threatened by Mr. Trump, she has been under duress all this time, and therefore she should be permitted additional time to come forward. Legally, this is calling “tolling” - stopping the clock, allowing more time to file the case. As a result, the complaint alleges, Jane Doe did not have “freedom of will to institute suit earlier in time.” He cites two New York cases which I have read and which do support tolling

Two unusual documents are attached to Jane Doe’s complaints - sworn declarations attesting to the facts. The first is from Jane Doe herself, telling her horrific story, including the allegation that Jeffrey Epstein also raped her and threatened her into silence, and this stunner:

Defendant Epstein then attempted to strike me about the head with his closed fists while he angrily screamed at me that he, Defendant Epstein, should have been the one who took my virginity, not Defendant Trump . . .

And this one:

Defendant Trump stated that I shouldn’t ever say anything if I didn’t want to disappear like Maria, a 12-year-old female that was forced to be involved in the third incident with Defendant Trump and that I had not seen since that third incident, and that he was capable of having my whole family killed.

The second declaration is even more astonishing, because it is signed by “Tiffany Doe”, Mr. Epstein’s “party planner” from 1991-2000. Tiffany Doe says that her duties were “to get attractive adolescent women to attend these parties.” (Adolescents are, legally, children.

Tiffany Doe says that she recruited Jane Doe at the Port Authority in New York, persuaded her to attend Mr. Epstein’s parties, and actually witnessed the sexual assaults on Jane Doe:

I personally witnessed the Plaintiff being forced to perform various sexual acts with Donald J. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were advised that she was 13 years old.

It is exceedingly rare for a sexual assault victim to have a witness. But Tiffany Doe says:

I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the Plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.

Tiffany Doe corroborates, based on her own personal observations, just about everything in Jane Doe’s complaint: that twelve year old Maria was involved in a sex act with Mr. Trump, that Mr. Trump threatened the life of Jane Doe if she ever revealed what happened, and that she would “disappear” like Maria if she did.

Tiffany Doe herself says that she is in mortal fear of Mr. Trump to this day:
I am coming forward to swear to the truthfulness of the physical and sexual abuse that I personally witnessed of minor females at the hands of Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein . . . I swear to these facts under the penalty for perjury even though I fully understand that the life of myself and my family is now in grave danger.

Given all this, and based on the record thus far, Jane Doe’s claims appear credible. Mr. Epstein’s own sexual crimes and parties with underage girls are well documented, as is Mr. Trump’s relationship with him two decades ago in New York City. Mr. Trump told a reporter a few years ago: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it, Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Powerfully, Jane Doe appears to have an eyewitness to all aspects of her claim, a witness who appears to have put herself in substantial danger by coming forward, because at a minimum Mr. Epstein knows her true identity.

Jane Doe has not granted any interviews, and we don’t know anything about her background, or Tiffany Doe’s, or the details of their stories. Much information needs to be revealed to fully assess this case. Perhaps they will be discredited on cross-examination. Perhaps they will recant. But if we’re going to speculate in that direction, we should speculate in the other direction as well. Perhaps Jane Doe and her lawyer will have more evidence and witnesses to corroborate her claim. Perhaps witnesses from Mr. Epstein’s notorious parties will come forward. We just can’t know any of that at this point.

But based on what we do know now, Jane Doe’s claims fall squarely into the long, ugly context of Mr. Trump’s life of misogyny, are consistent with prior sexual misconduct claims, are backed up by an eyewitness, and thus should be taken seriously. Her claims merit sober consideration and investigation.

We live in a world where wealthy, powerful men often use and abuse women and girls. While these allegations may shock some, as a lawyer who represents women in sexual abuse cases every day, I can tell you that sadly, they are common, as is an accuser’s desire to remain anonymous, and her terror in coming forward.

What do you call a nation that refuses to even look at sexual assault claims against a man seeking to lead the free world?

Rape culture.

We ignore the voices of women at our peril.’

 

 

Don't be fooled: Trump's populist economic rhetoric is a fraud - Conor Lynch

 

 

Clinton: Trump is 'dangerously incoherent,' 'temperamentally unfit' to be president  Washington Post [ Indeed he is … all that … BAD! … Hillary is Spot On and Right ! ]

 

SAN DIEGO - Hillary Clinton lacerated Donald Trump in a much-anticipated foreign policy speech Thursday, effectively launching her general-election campaign by declaring him “temperamentally unfit” to lead the most powerful nation in the world.

 

THE 13 BEST LINES FROM HILLARY CLINTON'S BLISTERING SPEECH ABOUT DONALD TRUMP

"There's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf-course deal.​"

By Prachi Gupta

  Jun 2, 2016

With her eyes toward the general election, on Thursday, Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton took aim at Donald Trump. In a scathing, uncharacteristically blunt speech delivered in San Diego, Clinton addressed America's national security and, specifically, the threats America will face if Trump becomes commander in chief. Through Clinton and Trump have been taking jabs at each other all year, her remarks Thursday were the strongest attack yet against the presumptive Republican nominee. Here are her 13 most powerful lines:

 

1. "Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different — they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas — just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies."

 

2. "This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes — because it's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin."

 

3. "We cannot put the security of our children and grandchildren in Donald Trump's hands. We cannot let him roll the dice with America."

4. "He says he doesn't have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has — quote — 'a very good brain.''"

5. "He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia."

6. "It's no small thing when he calls Mexican immigrants 'rapists and murderers.' We're lucky to have two friendly neighbors on our land borders. Why would he want to make one of them an enemy?"

7. " There's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf-course deal. But it doesn't work like that in world affairs. Just like being interviewed on the same episode of 60 Minutes as Putin was, is not the same thing as actually dealing with Putin. So the stakes in global statecraft are infinitely higher and more complex than in the world of luxury hotels. We all know the tools Donald Trump brings to the table — bragging, mocking, composing nasty tweets — I'm willing to bet he's writing a few right now."

8. "And I have to say, I don't understand Donald's bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America. He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength. He said, 'You've got to give Kim Jong Un credit' for taking over North Korea — something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie. And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he'd give him an A. Now, I'll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants. I just wonder how anyone could be so wrong about who America's real friends are. Because it matters. If you don't know exactly who you're dealing with, men like Putin will eat your lunch."

9. "A Trump presidency would embolden ISIS. We cannot take that risk. This isn't reality television — this is actual reality."

10. "So it really matters that Donald Trump says things that go against our deepest-held values. It matters when he says he'll order our military to murder the families of suspected terrorists. During the raid to kill bin Laden, when every second counted, our SEALs took the time to move the women and children in the compound to safety. Donald Trump may not get it, but that's what honor looks like. And it also matters when he makes fun of disabled people, calls women 'pigs,' proposes banning an entire religion from our country, or plays coy with white supremacists. America stands up to countries that treat women like animals, or people of different races, religions, or ethnicities as less human."

11. "What happens to the moral example we set — for the world and for our own children — if our president engages in bigotry? And by the way, Mr. Trump — every time you insult American Muslims or Mexican immigrants, remember that plenty of Muslims and immigrants serve and fight in our armed forces. Donald Trump could learn something from them."

12. "Now imagine Donald Trump sitting in the Situation Room, making life-or-death decisions on behalf of the United States. Imagine him deciding whether to send your spouses or children into battle. Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he's angry, but America's entire arsenal. Do we want him making those calls — someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism? Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?"

13. "This election is a choice between two very different visions of America. One that's angry, afraid, and based on the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline. The other is hopeful, generous, and confident in the knowledge that America is great — just like we always have been."

 

 

 

Donald Trump threatens Amazon as payback for Washington Post articles he doesn't like

Updated by Matthew Yglesias on May 13, 2016, 8:30 a.m. ET

 

 

Is Donald Trump a fascist?

It's becoming a common question, and prominent neoconservative columnist Robert Kagan is the latest to lob the accusation, declaring, "This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him."…

Trump might have been his own publicist

‘It was not me’: Donald Trump denies being own publicist in surreal audio recording from 1991

Colin Campbell

 

Deputy Politics Editor

 

May 13, 2016

 

 

Donald Trump bristled during a Friday interview when he was asked about a recently unearthed audio recording of him allegedly discussing his own love life in third-person.

“It was not me on the phone. It was not me on the phone,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said on the “Today” show, dismissing the line of questioning as “low” and unimportant.

Earlier Friday, the Washington Post published a surreal, 14-minute phone call from 1991 between a man who said his name was John Miller — and who sounds like Trump — discussing Trump’s dating life.

“He gets called by everybody in the book in terms of women,” the man says in the recording, which was with Sue Carswell, a reporter at People magazine.

“Actresses, people that you write about, just call to see if they can go out with him,” he soon adds.

Trump, a real estate scion, was frequently covered by New York’s tabloids in the 1980s and 1990s, years before he burst on to the national scene as the star of “The Apprentice.”

He is widely described as having used two alter egos (yes, as indicated by ben carson and that multiple personality thing going on with trump)— “John Miller” and “John Barron” — in order to be his own publicist. At the time, Carswell reported that both New York Post columnist Cindy Adams and Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife who is discussed in the phone call, identified the voice in the recording as Trump’s.

“Astoundingly, and sadly, the most telling response came from Marla Maples herself,” Carswell wrote for People in 1991. “After she listened to a fragment and identified Trump, she was flabbergasted. It was the first time she had heard him publicly declare the relationship over.”

 

But on Friday morning, Trump said the recording was a “scam.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said on “Today.”

“You’re telling me about it for the first time,” the mogul continued. “And it doesn’t sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice. And you can imagine that. And this sounds like one of the scams.”

Anchor Savannah Guthrie continued to press Trump on the topic.

“The Post says that you acknowledged a couple decades ago that in fact that was you. But it was a joke,” she told him.

“I don’t think it was me. It doesn’t sound like me. I don’t know even what they’re talking about,” Trump replied.

Trump, asked about the recording a couple more times, criticized the questions and asked to move on to other topics.

“Wow. You mean you’re going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago about whether or not I made a phone call?” he pushed ‘’back. “Let’s get on to more current subjects,” he added.

 

'It's none of your business': George Stephanopoulos and Donald Trump have testy exchange on tax returns

ABC's George Stephanopoulos pressed Donald Trump on Friday in one of the most combative exchanges yet over the Manhattan billionaire's tax returns. "It's none of your business," Trump said when the ABC host asked about his tax rate. The presumptive GOP nominee has faced increased scrutiny over releasing his tax returns since he told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wasn't planning on releasing them ahead of the election, citing an ongoing audit.

Business Insider

Why It's Important For Trump To Release His Tax Returns

The Huffington Post

 

 

MITT ROMNEY, RUN FOR PRESIDENT

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435800/mitt-romney-third-party-campaign-president-urgently-needed

 

 

US Supreme Court Justice: "If Trump Wins, It's Time To Move To New Zealand"   { Indeed! … Well, no person in their right mind would say that she is less than brilliant; but importantly, such intellect if pervasive would have nipped psychopath hitler in the bud … After all, to put it simplistically in words that even a trump supporter could understand, if it looks like hitlerian psychopathic s**t, sounds like hitlerian psychopathic s**t, smells like hitlerian psychopathic s**t, let’s be smart and not step in it! }:

‘… Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that if Donald Trump wins the presidential election, she’ll consider moving.  In an interview with The New York Times published Sunday, the Supreme Court justice, whose peers traditionally avoid political topics like the plague, said her husband, who died in 2010, would have said, "Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand."

 

 

trump Endorses Hillary Clinton for President:   Trump on Clinton in 2008: ‘She’d make a good president’  …   Donald Trump is attacking Hillary Clinton these days, but eight years ago, in the midst of the 2008 Democratic primary race, he said she would “make a good president” and a lot of people thought pairing her with Barack Obama would be a “dream ticket.”

His kind words for Clinton came in a previously unreported clip from “Trumped!,” a syndicated radio feature that aired from 2004 to 2008 and consisted of a daily commentary of about 60 seconds from the real-estate mogul.

Trump: 'I Am the Law and Order Candidate'
Recent posts on PoliticusUSA

 

Donald Trump co Donald Trump Busted For Hiring Actors To Cheer For Him At Campaign Rally

By

uldn’t attract enough “real Americans” to cheer for him at his presidential campaign announcement, so he hired a bunch of actors to stand around and cheer at fifty bucks a pop.

The Hollywood Reporter busted The Donald:

Donald Trump’s big presidential announcement Tuesday was made a little bigger with help from paid actors — at $50 a pop.

New York-based Extra Mile Casting sent an email last Friday to its client list of background actors, seeking extras to beef up attendance at Trump’s event.

“We are looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement,” reads the June 12 email, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “We understand this is not a traditional ‘background job,’ but we believe acting comes in all forms and this is inclusive of that school of thought.”

Republican campaigns are famous for having to bribe or bus in supporters. In 2012, Mitt Romney had a caravan of Mormon college kids that the campaign bused into events to cheer for the Republican nominee. The difference between what other Republicans did and Trump’s behavior is that they brought people in who were real supporters of the candidate. Trump went out and paid actors to pretend like they were supporting his candidacy.

Donald Trump’s campaign launch was just plain weird. From the racist and rambling incoherent speech to the stolen Neil Young music, Trump’s announcement was like a rich kid’s birthday party on acid.

It turns out that Donald Trump was even worse than a snotty rich kid. He was a rich kid who had to pay strangers to pretend to be his friends. This explains why there were no crowd shots at Trump’s rally. The crowd probably would not have known what to do unless somebody yelled action.

Donald Trump has always been a fraud, but it is telling that he is delusional enough to believe that he can fake his way into the White House.

  , ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOPICAL INDEX

 

Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump With Raping A 13-Year-Old Girl

 

Trump Endorses Hillary Clinton for President:     Trump on Clinton in 2008: ‘She’d make a good president’

 

Hitler’s Not Trump’s Only Hero … Of More Recent Vintage Is … Saddam Hussein …Yes You Heard That Right … ‘Lovely Man’ … Hussein’s Fascination With And Respect For (Mental Case That He Also Was) The New York / New Jersey Mafia Stereotypes Spawned By ‘The Godfather 1,2,3’ Might  Be The Reason [There Were Numerous Pictures Of  The Now Very Dead Sad Damned Hussein Toolin’ Around In His Guinea Hat, Wop Gun In Hand, Etc.( Having the memory of said picture in my mind’s eye, I proceeded to do a search for same online to add here, so absurd and laughably pathetic as they were, but thus far, even relevant links did not reveal said pictures; ie., see infra…

 

OUCH! NEWSWEEK EXPOSES TRUMP AS THE BUSINESS FRAUD HE IS.

By Fokozatos siker    Tuesday Aug 02, 2016

 

US Supreme Court Justice: "If Trump Wins, It's Time To Move To New Zealand"

 

Newsweek exposes trump as the business fraud he is


trump asked 3 times in an hour security briefing why we can't just use nuclear weapons

Clinton: Trump is 'dangerously incoherent,' 'temperamentally unfit' to be president   Washington Post [ Indeed he is … all that … BAD! … Hillary is Spot On and Right ! ]

The 13 Best Lines From Hillary Clinton's Blistering Speech About Donald Trump

 

Trump Tower Funded By Rich Chinese Who Invest Cash For Visas … Hoping For Some Triad Money?

 

T_Rump Attacks Carly Fiorina’s Looks

What About That Pelt On Trump’s Bald Head


‘Little Eva (Braun)’ Aka Ann Coulter, A Rabid Trump Supporter

Utter Fraud Palin’s a trumppet

 

Ghouliani’s Mob Heritage Underlying trump Advisor

 

Anti-Christ, Anti-Pope trump

 

Narcissist/Megalomaniac trump

 

Trump Links to Mob

 

The Klansmen and Mobsters in Donald Trump’s Closet

 

Harvard professor compares Donald Trump's rise to Hitler's

 

Some trump Busts/Scams

 

Trump’s Misogyny is Unmistakable and a National Disgrace

Trump’s a Loser Disguised by Only Fraud and Bulls**t

 

T_rump will set his military service record against that of McCain any day; viz., ‘the donald’ t_rump 0 vs. mccain –1

 

t_rump’s anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric for his crazies’ consumption

 

 ‘The Donald’s’ Role Model/Idol, ‘The Furor’, The Psychotic Adolph Hitler Himself Whose Orations T_Rump Obsessively Listened To For Inspiration

 

Trump On Waterboarding: "You Bet Your Ass I'd Approve It, Even If It Doesn't Work"

 

t_rump: ‘…my supporters are smart and loyal…I could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone and they’d still support me…my poll numbers wouldn’t change’

 

Pentagon Troops: It’s Us or Trump

Wochit News on MSN

 

Bully/misogynist trump runnin’ scared … ducks the fearless Megyn Kelly who won’t be intimidated by trump and his crazies (3-15-16: trump punks out ... again ... runs from debate ... )

 

 

trump Apparatchik Charged With Battery Against Female Journalist-trump Defends/Supports

 

trump Desperation

Trump Campaign Plunges Into 'Hunger Games'

 

trump Encouraging/Inciting Violence

 

trump Reveals Self in Asserting Women Should be Punished for Abortions {Handlers React and trump disingenuously/fraudulently tries to Cover}

 

Trump Tells Crowd He’ll Pay Legal Fees if They ‘Knock the Crap Out of’ Protesters

 

trump, the Russian Mafia, and Vladdy boy Putin (former communist KGB lightweight turned new age mobster)

 

What Putin’s Embrace Of Trump Tells Us About Trump


What Trump’s Embrace Of Putin Tells Us About Putin And As Well, Mob-Friendly/Intertwined Trump

Trump: The Kremlin’s Candidate by Robert Zubrin

 

trump: moscow’s sleeper agent … trump and alexander dugin …

 

‘Midnight in Moscow’ … (the sleeper agent) trump awakens

 

trump Ridiculous in Calling CIA Director Ridiculous on Torture

 

Mitt Romney suggests there's a "bombshell" in Donald Trump's taxes

 

 

Vladimir Putin: 'the godfather of a mafia clan' – Telegraph
Vladimir Putin: 'the godfather of a mafia clan'

The Moscow journalist Masha Gessen pulls no punches in her biography of Vladimir Putin, The Man Without a Face    {see also  Panama Papers: What Is the Scandal and How Is Putin Linked? }

 

By Mick Brown

The novelty matryoshka dolls that line the souvenir stalls around Moscow’s Red Square, along with the St Basil’s snow domes and the fake Red Army badges, provide a salutary insight into the ephemeral nature of fame and power.

Alongside the dolls depicting Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones and the Princess of Wales are portly, shining representations of such political leaders as George W Bush, Nicolas Sarkozy and, most bizarrely of all, Gordon Brown.

Russian politics is represented by a doll of the country’s president, the Black Sabbath fan Dmitry Medvedev. Nestling inside Medvedev are his predecessors in the post: Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin and Mikhael Gorbachev.

The chronology may be correct, but the symbolism is all wrong. In the four years that Medvedev has served as president he has been not so much matryoshka doll as puppet, in the shadow of Putin, nominally his prime minister, but the man who by iron rule has shaped Russia in his image over the past 12 years – the matryoshka doll in whom all Russia is contained.

It is a position that Putin has consolidated with a mixture of canniness and ruthlessness, and which he shows no sign of relinquishing. On March 4, having arranged with Medvedev to effectively change places, Putin will once again run in the election for the post of president. With opposition virtually non-existent, nobody expects him to lose. Having extended the presidential term from four to six years, Putin could occupy the post until 2024, making him the longest-lasting leader since Stalin.

Related Articles

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29 Mar 2012

·         Pussy Riot: rebels with a cause

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·         Putin tells Russians to reject a 'dash for change'

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·         Russia: Putin confronted over protests in live TV phone-in

15 Dec 2011

Masha Gessen is not so sure. A Russian-born writer who grew up in America and now lives in Moscow, and the author of a new book about Putin, Gessen believes that even as he consolidates his power, Russia is seeing the first signs of the inevitable fall of what she describes as 'this small and vengeful man’.

The tumultuous events of last December, when tens of thousands took to the streets of Moscow and cities across Russia in the biggest anti-government rallies since the fall of the Soviet Union, were the harbinger of what she describes as 'a revolution’.

Putin will win the election. That, in itself, is not a mechanism for change, Gessen says, 'because it’s not an election. But I think it will be a catalyst. I think it’s the beginning of the end for Putin. How long this process will last is hard to tell. But I think it is more likely to be a matter of months rather than years.’ She pauses. 'At least, I hope so.’

Gessen’s book, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, provides a compelling and exhaustive portrait of a man who rose without trace from being a minor KGB and St Petersburg bureaucrat to become what Gessen describes as 'the godfather of a mafia clan’, who has amassed a personal fortune that in 2007 was estimated by one Kremlin insider to be $40 billion.

Read an extract from The Man Without a Face here

It is a brave journalist who undertakes to write a critical – not to say overtly hostile – biography of Putin, in a country where press freedom is severely circumscribed, self-censorship a useful survival mechanism, and where those who have written disobligingly about Putin and his close allies, or dug too deeply into the corruption endemic in Russian politics and business, have often come to grief. In her years as a journalist, Gessen herself has been threatened, intimidated and burgled.

I meet her in a smart coffee shop near her home in central Moscow. Gessen, who is gay, lives with her partner, Darya, a cartographer, and her two children, a 13-year-old son, Voya, whom Gessen adopted as a baby, and an 11-year-old daughter, Yael, born by artificial insemination. Darya is now expecting her first child. It is mid-morning, and the cafe is crowded with the young metropolitan elite, fashionably dressed and happy to pay £5 for a latte, chattering and smoking over their iPads and laptops.

Gessen, 45, is a slight, pale-looking woman with short dark hair, a hawkish profile and an earnest demeanour. She is wearing a black tailored suit jacket and blue jeans. Pinned to her lapel is the white ribbon that has become the symbol of protest against the Putin regime ever since the demonstrations in December.

The catalyst for the protests was alleged vote-rigging in the parliamentary elections on December 4, which were won by Putin’s United Russia party. But they spoke of a deeper anger about the concentration of wealth and political power in Putin’s Russia, and the pervasive corruption that accompanies it.

'More basically,’ Gessen says, 'it’s about dignity. Every time a Russian comes into contact with the state, whether it’s to get a driver’s licence or a licence for his business, it’s unpredictable and it’s profoundly humiliating. In that sense the election was almost a stand-in for that contact with the state. It’s humiliating to vote and then have your vote stolen in a blatant manner. In a way there’s nothing more humiliating. It’s saying: you don’t exist.’

Gessen was born in Moscow. Her father, Sasha, was a computer scientist, her mother, Yolochka, a translator and literary critic. In 1981, when Masha was 14, the family joined the growing exodus of Russian Jews, emigrating to America and settling in Boston. After starting and abandoning a degree in architecture, Gessen became a writer. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was breaking up, she returned to Russia on a magazine assignment, reporting on the country’s fledgling women’s movement. Over the next three years she would return frequently on stories, finally moving back in 1994 to take a job as chief correspondent on a news weekly, Itogi.

Moscow then, she says, 'was the most exciting place in the world. Everything was in flux and every­thing was up for discussion. People were having serious discussions about the relationship between the individual and the state, how the media should be constructed, what the constitution should be. All of this was being seriously debated by any number of smart people, and you felt like you could have a place in the debate. It was amazing.’

Gessen went on to write on every aspect of the new Russia, including reporting on the war in Chechnya from beginning to end between 1994 and 1996, initially for Russian news magazines, latterly for American publications including the New York Times and Vanity Fair. She became a persistent critic of Putin and his regime.

'I was trying to crusade in American journalism and write about Putin for a long time before it had become an accepted fact that he was not the democratic hope that he had originally been seen as,’ she says. 'I remember in 2005 I was asked to write a piece about Putin as a threat to democracy. I said, you’ve missed the story – he’s not a threat, there is no democracy. And then I realised that the real story was to try and explain who this man was. Because really, nobody knew.’

Gessen argues that as the product of a highly secretive institution, the KGB, Putin has been able to control the details of his life, and shape his own mythology, more than almost any other modern politician – certainly any Western one.

Putin, she writes, was 'a faceless man’ promoted by people who wanted to 'invent’ a president. But that plan was subverted by the man himself and the secret-police apparatus that formed him and continues to sustain him. Rather than being the safeholder of a new era of democracy, as his sponsors had hoped, Putin has turned Russia into 'a supersize model of the KGB’, where there can be no room for dissent or even independent action.

Vladimir Putin was born in 1952 in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), a city still traumatised by the effects of the Second World War.

His father had fought with the special forces, operating behind German lines, returning home severely disabled and finding work as a skilled labourer. His mother, who had almost died of starvation during the siege of the city by the Nazis, worked in a series of backbreaking jobs. They had lost two children before Putin was born.

The young Putin was a tearaway, 'a real thug’, as he would later boast to his official biographers, often scrapping in the courtyard of the overcrowded apartment building where the family lived.

From an early age, inspired by the example of his father, Putin dreamt of being a spy. 'I was most amazed by how a small force, a single person, really, can accomplish something an entire army cannot,’ he told his biographers. 'A single intelligence officer could rule over the fates of thousands of people. At least, that’s how I saw it.’

Joining the KGB, he was sent to spy school in Moscow and then dispatched to Dresden in what was then East Germany, tasked with cultivating future undercover agents among foreign students. The Soviet Union was in the first throes of perestroika, as Mikhail Gorbachev loosened the reins on Soviet bloc countries and sowed seeds of resentment among the KGB leadership and rank-and-file.

'Everything Putin had worked for was now in doubt,’ Gessen writes. 'Everything he had believed was being mocked.’ He would not return home until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

'I think a lot of his resentment goes back directly to that period,’ Gessen says. 'Having been in the KGB at a bad time, having been outside the country when everything was changing… He’s a very vengeful man – that’s one of his particular traits of character. And that vengefulness has carried through. He’s pursuing a vendetta against everybody who was ever opposed to the Soviet Union.’

Putin returned to St Petersburg, where he became assistant to the mayor, while continuing in the KGB. For all the reforms that were taking place in Russia, St Petersburg, Gessen writes, was 'a state within a state’: a place where the KGB remained all-powerful, where local politicians and journalists had their phones tapped, and the murder of major political and business players was a regular occurrence.

'In other words, very much like Russia itself would become within a few years, once it came to be ruled by the people who ruled St Petersburg in the 1990s.’ In other words, Putin.

In 1996 Putin went to Moscow to work at the Kremlin, rising to be head of the FSB, the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB. It was here that he came into the orbit of Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin had become the first president of the new Russian Federation in 1991 and had been re-elected for a second term in 1996, but he was slipping into a state of sorry decline. His health was failing, his behaviour increasingly erratic – most people assumed as a result of his heavy drinking. He had alienated most of the politicians who had once supported him, and with no obvious successor in view, feared that another party might come to power and imprison him.

Foremost in the dwindling circle of Yeltsin’s allies and supporters known as 'the family’ was the oligarch Boris Berezovsky; indeed, many believed Berezovsky to be the real power behind Yeltsin’s throne. Berezovsky knew Putin from the early 1990s in St Petersburg when, in the first flush of buccaneering capitalism, Berezovsky was aiming to expand his car dealership and Putin was a minor city bureaucrat.

Putin arranged for Berezovsky to open a service station in the city, and declined to take a bribe. 'He was the first bureaucrat who did not take bribes,’ Berezovsky told Gessen. 'Seriously. It made a huge impression on me.’

Berezovsky began to vigorously promote Putin, among 'the family’ and to Yeltsin himself. He would remember Yeltsin’s reaction on meeting Putin: 'He seems all right,’ the president said of his putative successor, 'but he’s kind of small.’ In August 1999 Yeltsin appointed Putin prime minister.

'Yeltsin needed to appoint somebody who would guarantee his safety,’ Gessen says. 'The problem was that the pool of people from which they were choosing was tiny. Anybody who was working as a politician, or even as a bureaucrat, had defected. So they were looking at people who by definition were unsuitable for the job. And Putin was one of those people. Perhaps he looked like the best person; I think he was probably the worst.’

Putin, she says, was 'a grey, ordinary man’ with no articulated political vision and no identifiable political ambition, on to whom everybody could project whatever they wished to see in him. Berezovsky, who had thrown his Channel One television station behind Putin, believed that 'being devoid of personality and personal interest’, he would be both malleable and disciplined.

The Foundation for Effective Politics, the organisation set up to promote Putin, was made up primarily of young, idealistic liberals who were prepared to overlook his KGB past. 'The reason the ground was primed for him was that people needed to feel a sort of limited nostalgia for the Soviet Union, and someone who was very sure of what he was doing and saying,’ Gessen says. 'Everyone was tired of Yeltsin, his erratic behaviour, his total unpredictability, the fact that he was a total embarrassment on the international stage.’

Putin was promoted as a young, energetic leader – a man, as Gessen puts it, who 'wore good European suits and spoke a foreign language’, who would shepherd Russia into a bright future of economic reform and stable democracy, but also a strong man who could solve the country’s domestic problems and restore its international standing.

Within weeks of his appointment as prime minister Putin had demonstrated just how decisive he could be. In September 1999 Russia was shocked by a series of bombings of apartment blocks that killed more than 300 people and left more than 1,900 injured. The bombings were immediately blamed on Chechen terrorists – and provided an opportunity for Putin to demonstrate his credentials as a strong leader.

On September 23 a group of 24 governors – more than a quarter of the federation – had written to Yeltsin asking him to yield power to Putin. The same day, Yeltsin issued a secret decree authorising the army to resume combat in Chechnya, and Russian planes began bombing the capital, Grozny. The following day Putin issued his own order authorising Russian troops to engage in combat – even though the prime minister has no legal authority over the military – and made one of his first television appearances, promising to hunt down the terrorists: 'Even if we find them in the toilet. We will rub them out in the outhouse.’

'His popularity,’ Gessen writes, 'began to soar.’

The suggestion that the apartment-block bombings were a 'false flag’ operation by the FSB has long been bruited in conspiracy circles. In her book, Gessen, who describes herself to me as 'probably the least conspiratorially minded person in this country of conspiracy theories’, comes to the conclusion that the FSB was, indeed, behind the bombings – and that Putin would very likely have been aware of the fact.

'We have this expression in Russian: both is worse,’ she says. 'Which is worse – if he knew about it or didn’t know about it? Both is worse. All the evidence points to the fact that these explosions were organised by the FSB, and he was the head of the FSB until three to six weeks before the bombings began. If he wasn’t aware of them that’s damning; more likely, of course, he was. Certainly he would have been aware if it was carried out by the FSB after the fact; and certainly he would have personally made the decision not to investigate.’

Putin has never commented on the speculation that the FSB was implicated in the bombings. Nor has the suggestion ever gained any traction among the Russian populace. One television channel that did investigate the bombings was NTV, part of a media conglomerate, Media-Most, owned by Vladimir Gusinsky. (Gusinsky was also the publisher of Igoti, the magazine that Gessen was working for at the time.)

Within days of Putin’s inauguration as president in May 2000, armed militia raided the offices of Media-Most, intimidating staff and seizing papers. The raid, Gessen writes, was a threat: its alleged initiator, Putin. Within a matter of weeks, Gusinsky was arrested on trumped-up charges stemming from the privatisation some years earlier of a company called Russkoye Video.

Gusinsky spent three days in jail and then fled the country, having apparently agreed to cede his majority share in his media empire to the state gas company, Gazprom. 'In other words,’ Gessen writes, 'this was a classic organised-crime contract, formalising the exchange of one’s business for one’s personal safety: and the state was party to it.’

When Gessen began investigating the Russkoye Video story, uncovering documents that implicated Putin, she was threatened over the telephone by the prosecutor involved in the case. 'He told me I’d be sorry. Just like that.’ A 'workman’ suddenly appeared at her apartment door – 24 hours a day. Her telephone was mysteriously cut off.

'These were again old KGB tactics. Nobody touched me; except for that phone call nobody said anything to me. But that sense of invasion… it was terrifying. And it made me realise how quickly you can be made to feel unsafe in your own home.’

Getting rid of Gusinsky was the first step in Putin consolidating power by seizing control both of the media and the levers of politics. He introduced laws that effectively abolished elections to the upper house of parliament, and appointed presidential envoys to become overseers of elected regional governors. (In 2004, in his second term as president, he changed the law so that governors were directly appointed by the Kremlin.)

Then he moved on his old ally Berezovsky. The man who had helped to make Putin had fallen out with him almost as soon as Putin became president, attacking his constitutional reforms and using his tele­vision station, Channel One, to criticise Putin over his handling of the Kursk submarine disaster in August 2000.

After clashing with Putin, Berezovsky was obliged to flee to France, and then to Britain, where he now lives. A warrant for his arrest was filed in Russia and his shares in Channel One appropriated by the state. Within a year of Putin coming to office, all three federal television networks would be under state control.

In a sense, Gessen says, Putin’s methods are in a long and ignoble tradition of Russian politics: the exercise of fear. 'That’s true of his private way of conducting politics, and it’s true of his public rhetoric. He is the heir to the great Russian tradition of “we are a country under siege” poli­tical rhetoric, which has been used throughout Russian history.

'And I think Putin believes that. It’s an assumption he was born and bred with, and he’s never thought to challenge it. I don’t think he is a very smart man, nor a very educated man. He’s an average Soviet functionary with stronger than average emotions, and higher than average vindictiveness.

'He’s a tiny, mean guy who will bite you if you get too close; and that’s the kind of country he’s tried to build. And that’s been the extent of Russian foreign policy for the last 12 years. What is Russia’s foreign policy agenda? You can’t figure it out from who Russia becomes friends with or sells arms to or negotiates with, because it’s really simple. Russia wants to be feared. That’s it.’

Gessen likens Putin to 'the godfather of a mafia clan’ ruling Russia. And 'like all mafia bosses, he barely distinguishes between his personal property, the property of his clan and the property of those beholden to his clan.’

Corruption has been virtually institutionalised under his regime. Last year the Transparency International 'Corruptions Perception Index’ ranked Russia joint 143rd out of the 182 countries listed, along with Nigeria and Mauritania.

Putin’s own acquisitiveness is typified, Gessen says, in two apparently minor but telling incidents. In 2005, while hosting a group of American businessmen in St Petersburg, Putin pocketed a diamond-encrusted ring belonging to Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots American football team, after asking to try it on, and allegedly saying, 'I could kill someone with this.’ After a flurry of articles in the US press, Kraft announced the ring had been a gift, preventing an uncomfortable situation from spiralling out of control.

Later that year, Putin was a guest at the Guggenheim museum in New York. At one point his hosts brought out a conversation piece – a glass replica of a Kalashnikov automatic weapon filled with vodka (which can be picked up in Russia for about $300). According to Gessen, Putin nodded to his bodyguards, who took the piece away, 'leaving the hosts speechless’. 'I do suspect it’s a compulsion,’ she says. 'And another reason I suspect it’s a compulsion is because of the palace.’

'The palace’ is the property on the Black Sea which, it is alleged, Putin had built for himself with money earmarked for public spending. The story begins with a company called Rosinvest, which had been set up by a businessman named Sergei Kolesnikov and two partners to invest money donated by wealthy businessmen in various government projects. Ninety-four per cent of the company was owned by Putin.

The company initially invested in 16 different projects, mostly in industrial production, and all returning a handsome profit. A side project was a small personal project of Putin’s, a house on the Black Sea budgeted at $16 million. But, Kolesnikov told Gessen, 'things kept getting added’: an amphitheatre, a lift to the beach, a marina…

By 2009 the budget had passed $1 billion. Kolesnikov was informed by his partner that Rosinvest would no longer be making investments; its only purpose now was the completion of the Black Sea palace. Kolesnikov fled Russia, taking the company’s documentation with him, before going public with the story.

Putin’s office dismissed it as rubbish. In March 2011 it was reported that the villa had been sold to a businessman named Alexander Ponomarenko. He said he had bought the complex, which he described as 'a holiday centre’, from a friend of Putin’s, Nikolai Shamalov.

'First they denied its existence, then they denied Putin’s association with it; and then they sold it,’ Gessen says. 'But the question is, what was Putin going to do with a palace on the Black Sea anyway? He could have used state money to build a palace for receptions. This is normal Russian practice – use public money to build gaudy palaces that will be used once a year. But no, he was building a private property. He clearly doesn’t plan on retiring, but if he did he wouldn’t stay in Russia. So it looks more like compulsive behaviour than long-term planning, which I think he’s incapable of anyway.’

Putin, she says, has created a Russia where there is no meaningful opposition. The candidates who will run against him in next week’s elections are generally regarded as toothless, or in the case of Mikhail Prokhorov, the multi-millionaire businessman, widely dismissed as a Kremlin stooge.

Gessen believes the only opposition figure with any credibility or authority is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch who is currently languishing in a penal colony near the Chinese border.

Khodorkovsky made his fortune from banking and from the oil company Yukos, which he acquired for $300 million in 1995 when Yeltsin began auctioning off state assets – a red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist whose creed was expressed in a book that he co-authored in 1992, Man With a Rouble: 'Our guiding light is Profit, acquired in a strictly legal way. Our lord is His Majesty Money, for it is only He who can lead us to wealth as the norm in life.’

But having become the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky began to display a social conscience. He established an education foundation, Open Russia, funded training for journalists, and began to speak out against corruption. In 2003, at a meeting between Putin and Russia’s wealthiest businessmen that was open to the media, Khodorkovsky challenged the president of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft over the glaringly high price that Rosneft had paid to take over a smaller, privately held oil company. The president of Rosneft remained silent. Instead, Putin rounded on Khodorkovsky, accusing Yukos of bribing tax inspectors and issuing a veiled threat to take over the company.

Khodorkovsky left for America on a business trip, but then returned, despite warnings that he would soon be arrested, and began a speaking tour, giving talks about business, democracy and the need for 'a civil society’ in Russia. In October 2003 he was arrested, and 18 months later, in what Gessen describes as 'the show trial to end all show trials’, he was indicted on charges of fraud and tax evasion, and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. In 2009 he was found guilty of a new set of charges, of stealing his own oil, and sentenced again – to 14 years.

With Khodorkovsky in jail, Yukos was soon facing bankruptcy proceedings. In what looked suspiciously like a rigged auction, its most attractive asset, a company called Yuganskneftegaz, the owner of some of Europe’s largest oil reserves, passed into the hands of a shell company financed by Rosneft – the very company that Khodorkovsky had attacked. The price was less than half the estimated worth of Yuganskneftegaz at the time. The auction lasted only two minutes.

Gessen describes Khodorkovsky as 'the Nelson Mandela of Russia. He’s as amazing a figure as Russia has at this point. The bare facts of the matter are that he essentially made a conscious decision to go to prison – which is not to say he fully realised how awful and for how long this would be. He could have stayed outside the country. And he continues to be engaged in its fate and in its future. And his voice has probably more moral authority at this point than anybody in this country.’

Masha Gessen doubts that The Man Without a Face will be published in Russia. An editor at a Moscow publishing house expressed interest, but was unable to persuade her company to go ahead with it. 'The way that business functions here is that there are so many rules and regulations that every business is perennially in violation of something. Basically what she was told was, there are 300 people working here. All of them have some irregularity in the way they are drawing salary, so all of them are going to lose their jobs if there’s an inspection, which we will have if we publish the book.’

Gessen says she was asked for a copy of the book by 'somebody close to the Kremlin… He said he didn’t get all the way through, but he liked the writing.’ She gives a slight smile. 'I didn’t push him any further.’ She acknowledges that she is probably watched, and her telephone tapped. 'But that’s nothing extraordinary. I’ve not had any threats in connection with the book; nor in connection with anything else – not in a while.’

None the less, one has to wonder why she has chosen to remain in Russia when she could as easily – and more safely – live in America. 'That’s true. But my partner is Russian, so that would be a very difficult transition. [She doesn’t qualify for American citizenship]. It’s not like we can just pick up and go. It’s not a question to be handled lightly. Or else it’s a decision to be made at short notice when we feel likely we’re in real danger.’

She pauses. 'There is a theory that is popular among journalists that to Putin there are enemies and there are traitors. And enemies have a right to exist; he might not like them, but they have a right to exist. Traitors don’t have a right to exist. It’s a nice theory. I like it because I’m such a clear-cut enemy that I should be safe.’

Read an extract from The Man Without a Face here

'The Man Without a Face’ (Granta, £20) is available for £18 plus £1.25 p&p from Telegraph Books (0844-871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk).

 

Boris Nemtsov murder: Putin now governs mostly through terror and propaganda

Any plot against Boris Nemtsov would have been known by the Kremlin. Putin either killed him or tolerated his death

By Ben Judah

28 Feb 2015

Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia with three things: money, propaganda and terror. When the Russian economy was booming and the oil price was over $100 a barrel, Putin ruled Russia almost entirely with money – throwing cash at the elites and at the people – with a small dose of propaganda and a tiny injection here and there of terror. Now the money is running out, the equation has shifted. Today, Russia is ruled mostly through propaganda and terror.

Boris Nemtsov took not a step nor a breath that wasn't under the intense surveillance of the FSB. Just like all opposition leaders in Russia. Nothing Boris Nemtsov did was not bugged, tailed, filmed or monitored by the secret police. It is quite simply impossible that this man could have been shot dead without the Kremlin knowing there was a plot afoot to kill him.

This means the murder of Boris Nemtsov was either ordered or allowed to happen: which come to exactly the same thing. That he could be killed like this has shaken the oligarchs and the officers of the Russian elite to their core. Boris Nemtsov was once Russia’s deputy prime minister and a protégé of Boris Yeltsin. He was almost picked as a successor instead of Putin. His murder means that the Putin’s solemn – and public – promise not to touch Yeltsin and his allies has been torn up.

This means the old Moscow rulebook has been torn up, too. Ever since fall of Khrushchev power in Moscow has changed hands without executions. Once ousted, old ruling cliques were allowed to live their lives out in irrelevance. Ripping this up works perfectly for Putin. Those contemplating, even in the abstract, a coup know they could be executed for it – and those loyal to Putin now believe that they must fight to keep him in power as they could be executed in revenge should he fall. Vladimir Putin now has the elite exactly where he wants them: terrified.

Ben Judah is the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin.

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Why do we hate Putin more than Islamic terrorists?...

www.wnd.com/...do-we-hate-putin-more-than-islamic-terrorists

Mar 11, 2014 · Why do we hate Putin more than Islamic terrorists? ... look at these new leaders before patting ... by ‘a Jewish-Russian mafia’ and has ...

4.    

Trump Putin the perfect NUCLEAR storm | Money...

moneyprank.com/2016/03/21/trump-putin-the...

Mar 20, 2016 · ... they were completely unable to adapt to the new ... The Russians came with Russian mafia. ... Both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are the very ...

5.    

Vladimir Putin criticises Donald Trump for demonising Russia

www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/the-bromance...

... but the budding bromance between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US ... 6:26 AM New York ... Trump also gained an endorsement from Russian ...

6.    

Putin and Trump Share an Authoritarian Spirit |...

hrf.org/news/putin-and-trump-share-an...

Historical comparisons involving Russian leader Vladimir Putin are usually directed toward the distant ... Putin and Trump have little in common. ... New York, NY ...

7.    

Vladimir Putin : MAFIA TODAY

mafiatoday.com/tag/vladimir-putin

Jul 29, 2013 · New York Mafia Social Clubs Past and ... Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly enamored with the seaside resort town and frequently enjoys ...

8.    

Cruz team targets Trump-Putin lovefest - POLITICO

www.politico.com/story/2016/03/ted-cruz-trump-putin-221000

... but will be focused in New York, Pennsylvania, ... But when it comes Russia and Putin’s invasion of ... Trump said Putin is “very bright” and ...

Why do we hate Putin more than Islamic terrorists?...

www.wnd.com/...do-we-hate-putin-more-than-islamic-terrorists

Mar 11, 2014 · Why do we hate Putin more than Islamic terrorists? ... a Jewish-Russian mafia’ and has ... Putin of Russia is cast as an evil ...

2.    

Trump Adviser Compared U.S.- Russia Policy to...

freebeacon.com/politics/trump-adviser-compared-u-s-russia...

... even praising the country’s strongman president Vladimir Putin and ... Asked about the killings of adversarial reporters in Russia, Trump ... New York Dam; On ...

3.    

Cruz team targets Trump-Putin lovefest - POLITICO

www.politico.com/story/2016/03/ted-cruz-trump-putin-221000

... but will be focused in New York, Pennsylvania, ... But when it comes Russia and Putin’s invasion of ... Trump said Putin is “very bright” and ...

4.    

The Dark Knight of Mother Russia: How The Russian...

gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-dark-knight-of...

... How The Russian Government Works Together With The Mafia. ... Medvedev is viewed as “Robin to Putin’s Batman”. This is nothing new. ... the Russian Mafia ...

5.    

RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES

www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/218560.pdf

RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES By James O ... Russian mafia, Russian mob, ... New York. This is the largest Russian community in the United States.

6.    

Unanswered Questions: Trump’s Ties to Soros,...

noisyroom.net/blog/2016/03/08/unanswered-questions-trump...

Mar 07, 2016 · Then there are Trump’s Russian mob ... ties to the Russian Mafia and was a ... addressed in Trump’s New York operations is the use of ...

7.    

Alexander Litvinenko's voice recording links Vladimir Putin ...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/.../Litvinenko-links-Putin...

Russia did kill dissident Alexander Litvinenko in a ... between the Russian mafia and ... at the opening of Smythson's first New York ...

8.    

Trump defends comments on Tiananmen Square, Putin...

www.newsunited.com/trump-defends-comments-on...news/28544011

'I think Putin's been a very strong leader for Russia, ... Related News about "Trump defends ... 1 In 2 Women View Donald Trump 'Very Unfavourably': Poll NEW YORK: ...

BBC NEWS | Special Report | 1998 | 03/98 | russian...

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/.../1998/03/98/russian_mafia/70095.stm

The rise and rise of the Russian mafia. ... Russian emigre communities in New York's Brighton Beach ... Brighton Beach is the home of the Russian mafia in America.

2.    

"Little Japanese": The Russian Mob's Man In Brooklyn

gothamist.com/2013/03/06/little_japanese_the_russian...

"Little Japanese": The Russian Mob's Man In Brooklyn. ... a nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and at the Russian ... said detectives with the New York City ...

3.    

National Restaurant - 14 Photos - Russian - Brighton Beach ...

www.yelp.com/biz/national-restaurant-brooklyn

New York, NY; 1 friend; 46 reviews; Share review Compliment ... One of the best experiences I've ever had was at National Restaurant in Brighton Beach, NY.

4.    

The Brighton Beach Swindle - NYMag

nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/2159

The Brighton Beach Swindle The Russian ... John Ryan, a New York ... Bizayko represents the possibility that larger and more sophisticated crime ...

5.    

A walk from Coney Island to Brighton beach,...

www.urban75.org/.../newyork/...brighton-beach-new-york.html

Coney Island and Brighton Beach, southern Brooklyn, New York, ... , New York Walking the boardwalk from Coney ... larger Russian crime syndicates in New York ...

6.    

For Jewish Brighton Beach, it's memoir time | The...

www.timesofisrael.com/for-jewish-brighton-beach-its...

... ,” is how New York ... with its defanged Mafia lore, Brighton Beach frowns at ... the population of Central Asian Russian speakers in the area has ...

7.    

Brighton Beach, A Voyage to Russia (Brooklyn, NY)...

offmetro.com/ny/2008/04/13/brighton-beach-a-voyage-to-russia

Guide to the Brighton Beach neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, ... Brighton Beach, A Voyage to ... Brighton Beach is unapologetically Russian and makes no visible ...

8.    

NYC’s Micro Neighborhoods: Little Odessa in ...

untappedcities.com/2014/01/...odessa-brighton-beach-brooklyn

Little Odessa is New York City's very own Russian mecca. ... NYC’s Micro Neighborhoods: Little Odessa in ... Local resident feeding the seagulls at Brighton Beach.

U.S. OFFICIALS TELL OF RUSSIAN EMIGRE CRIME GROUP IN BROOKLYN ...

www.nytimes.com/...officials-tell-of-russian-emigre-crime...

The ''Russian Mafia,'' as some Brighton Beach ... The F.B.I. does not believe that one person is in charge of Russian organized crime in New York. Mr ...

2.    

Brighton Beach - The Godfather Video Game Wiki -...

godfather-fanon.wikia.com/wiki/Brighton_Beach

Brighton Beach is an oceanside neighborhood of southern Brooklyn in New York ... Brighton Beach is an ... and it has been a major location for the Russian Mafia ...

3.     Russian Mafia - Overview - Gangsters Inc.

gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mafia-overview

Russian Mafia - Overview. Posted by ... Most of the Russians settled in Brighton Beach in New York, ... Russian organized crime can now be found everywhere, ...

4.    

PART 3: HOW THE RUSSIAN MAFIA INVADED AMERICA: BRIGHTON BEACH ...

netteandme.blogspot.com/2015/01/part-3-how-russian-mafia...

... HOW THE RUSSIAN MAFIA INVADED AMERICA: BRIGHTON BEACH ... the counsel to New York's Crime and Correc ... him to Russian mer­chants in New York and ...

5.    

The Russian Mafia in North America (Gangsters...

s14.invisionfree.com/GangstersInc/ar/t737.htm

... The Russian Mafia in ... He now owns two stores and a restaurant on Brighton Beach they are called ... New York Mafia and Russian mob joined to lure ...

6.    

Russian Mafia - Mafia Wiki - Wikia

mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Russian_Mafia

The Russian Mafia (Russian: ... the head of Russian organized crime in Brighton Beach was Evsei Agron. [9] ... New Mafia bosses sprung up, ...

7.    

Jewish Drugs and drug money laundering - Radio...

www.radioislam.org/thetruth/23drug.htm

AND OTHER CRIMINALS ... New York magazine about the home of the "Russian" mafia in America, Brighton Beach: ... New York City, where Russian gangs conducted ongoing ...

8.    

The Murder of a Russian Boxer | Village Voice

www.villagevoice.com/news/the-murder-of-a-russian-boxer...

The Murder of a Russian Boxer. ... for the murder—worked for Brighton Beach's Russian mafia group called the "Brigade," and that ... No. 2 man in New York.

Russian Mafia Boss Rakhimov and the Sochi...

gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mafia-boss...

Russian Mafia Boss Rakhimov and the ... popularly known as the Russian Mafia. With President Putin as boss of bosses ... Karen Gravano hopes President Trump ...

2.    

Russian Mafia Federation | Novorossia, Russia and...

kassander4ppp.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/russian...

Feb 25, 2016 · Russian Mafia Federation. ... Putin Pushes Russian Nation To Big American Asshole 18 March 2016; ... New RusTheftSysLibNadzor Profitable Institution 7 ...

3.    

Putin's Russia: A mafia state | The Economist

www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2010/12/putins_russia

Putin's Russia A mafia state ... then read the New York Times's recent piece on ... The depressing spectacle of Donald Trump’s rallies; 5 Russia’s ...

4.    

THE JUDEO- RUSSIAN MAFIA AND THE BLOODBATH TO...

www.darkmoon.me/2013/the-judeo-

When the Judeo-Russian mafia and ... It is through the Chechen mafia that international Jewry continues its secret war against Putin ... most notably New York, ...

5.    

Vladimir Putin Depicted a Thief as New Book Claims...

o        www.ibtimes.com.au

o          › Books

Before Russian President Vladimir Putin ... Vladimir Putin Depicted a Thief as New Book Claims KGB, Mafia Personalities Rule Russia. ... Writing for The New York ...

6.    

The Dark Knight of Mother Russia: How The ... -...

gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-dark-knight-of...

... How The Russian Government Works Together With The Mafia. ... In her book Putin’s Russia, ... Russia: The New Mafia State Politkovskaya had described in her ...

7.    

Unanswered Questions: Trump’s Ties to Soros,...

freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3407494/posts

... just like Obama was with Vladimir Putin. ... ties to the Russian Mafia and was a ... addressed in Trump’s New York operations is the use of ...

8.    

PUTIN, OBAMA & THE BANKSTERS VS. All OF HUMANITY - Dave ...

www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/11/11/putin-obama-the...

... owes its existence to Putin and the Russian Mafia. ... ruling party in the Russian Federation. Putinisms. New England Patriots ... Banksters vs. all of humanity.

 The Dark Knight of Mother Russia: How The ... -...

gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-dark-knight-of...

... How The Russian Government Works Together With The Mafia. ... In her book Putin’s Russia, ... Russia: The New Mafia State Politkovskaya had described in her ...

2.    

Why Putin Doesn’t Respect Us - The New York Times

www.nytimes.com/2014/03/...why-putin-doesnt-respect-us.html

... Europe and Russia. A wise Putin would have ... A27 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Putin Doesn’t Respect Us ...

3.    

Russian mafia whistleblower found dead in UK - Al Jazeera English

www.aljazeera.com/news/.../2012/11/2012112816104231564.html

Russian mafia whistleblower found dead in UK. ... twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained ... UK and the US to question Russia's Putin on its human ...

4.    

Ukraine vs Russia: A mafia state's cover-up ... - Al Jazeera ...

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/.../05/ukraine-vs-russia-mafia...

Ukraine vs Russia: A mafia state's ... The West misinterprets Putin by thinking that ... Democrat Hillary Clinton wins at least six states and Republican Donald Trump ...

5.    

Russian Leader: Obama Must Deal With 'Mafia State' - Newsmax.com

www.newsmax.com/KenTimmerman/...russia/2009/02/16/id/337489

... to“press the reset button” with the Russian government of Vladimir Putin, ... Russian Leader: Obama Must Deal With 'Mafia ... who has become Russia’s “new ...

6.    

The Ring and the Rings: Vladimir Putin’s Mafia Olympics

www.thenation.com/...rings-vladimir-putins-mafia-olympics

The Ring and the Rings: Vladimir Putin’s Mafia Olympics. ... subtropical Russian resort city of Sochi. Putin has staked his ... Trump’s Storm Troopers and the ...

7.    

Putin accused of presiding over ‘ mafia state’ at...

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/998d690c-a62c-11e4-9bd3-00144feab7de.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday accused at the opening of an ... Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a mafia state,” Mr Emmerson ... New York Institute ...

8.    

Russian mafia killings threaten Putin legacy - Telegraph

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1579733/Russian-mafia...

Russian mafia killings threaten Putin ... to work for the mafia. Most also credit Mr Putin with ending the violence by giving the police new powers and ...

 

 

World

Panama Papers: What Is the Scandal and How Is Putin Linked?

By Damien Sharkov On 4/4/16

The so-called Panama Papers, leaked over the weekend, detail alleged money laundering schemes, with a $2 billion scandal leading to the heart of the Kremlin. Here is what we know about the leak and how it has been received in Russia.

What is the leak?

The leak was of 11.5 million papers and documents—held by Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm—that were handed to German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung from a source that the newspaper has not identified.

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Suddeutsche Zeitung then shared the files with 107 newspapers, outlets and agencies whose journalists are members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The network includes award-winning journalists from the biggest media around the world; independent Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta was the one to publish the report in Russia.

The documents cover a period of 40 years until as recently as December 2015 and contain sensitive information about what appears to be alleged tax havens being used for suspected money laundering, drugs and arms deals, as well as tax avoidance through Panama.

Panama is regarded as “one of the most well-established pure tax havens in the Caribbean,” as there are no taxes imposed on offshore companies that only engage in business outside of the jurisdiction, according to Investopedia.

How is Vladimir Putin linked?

The Russian president is not named in the papers published by Suddeutsche Zeitung, but his childhood friend and godfather of his daughter Sergei Roldugin is. Roldugin, a cellist by trade, should not be a man of excessive means, but according to the Panama Papers he is a shareholder in some of Russia’s biggest companies.

The musician has a 12.5 percent stake in Video International, Russia’s biggest TV advertising agency, he owns 15 percent of a Cyprus-registered company called Raytar, 3.2 percent of the infamous Bank Rossiya and he was offered a minority stake in the Russian military truck manufacturer Kamaz.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow in this March 22 file photo. Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool/Files/Reuters

Besides Video International, four other offshore companies—Sonnette Overseas, International Media Overseas, Sunbarn and Sandalwood Continental—have been linked with Roldugin in the Panama Papers. All appear to be represented by a group of Swiss lawyers who act for the infamous Bank Rossiya. The bank and its owner Boris Kovalchuk are under U.S. and EU sanctions due to suspicions their operations and illicit dealings have helped Putin and his inner circle.

While Roldugin’s companies appear to have consistently made large profits from fake share transactions and consulting deals, as well as by receiving non-commercial loans, several documents from these companies claim Roldugin is not the “ultimate beneficial owner” of the enterprise. The confidentiality of that person is kept and instead Putin’s childhood friend is the one left formally responsible for these assets.

Some of the deals include a pattern of purchasing under-priced assets, including a 2011 purchase of a $200 million loan for $1, while four years earlier an entity owned by Roldugin had a $6 million loan written off, also for $1. In another example, the cellist’s Sandalwood Continental bought an asset for just $1 before selling it for $133 million, only three months later.

To make matters worse, the banks that agreed to the unsecured loans with entities such as Sandalwood were provided by Cyprus-based Russian Commercial Bank (RCB) and other Russian state banks. There is no explanation why the banks agreed to such dealings.

What has been the response in Russia?

Virtually nothing has been said about the scandal on Russian state airwaves on Monday morning. Neither of Russia’s top state news agencies, RIA Novosti and Itar-Tass, featured the Panama Papers as a top or ongoing story. Russia’s main state news channels have focused on a number of other stories, most notably the clashes in the South Caucasus over the weekend and a report alleging doping among British athletes is “commonplace and never punished.” The same segment on the latter has aired repeatedly on Russian news channels all day. Putin himself was seen discussing the modernization of Russia’s state archive Rosarhiv in a short televised meeting.

Where mentioned, the story was credited to Novaya Gazeta and when Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov addressed the specific reports in the afternoon he dismissed them as “Putin-phobia.”

“This is a continuation of the information attack, which we were anticipating,” Peskov said on Monday, Russia’s independent online TV channel Dozhd reports.

Peskov, whose own apparently vast Swiss watch collection has been the subject of speculation, denied he or his family are involved in any offshore dealings. He also said on Monday that anti-Russian rhetoric had become so strong in the West that it was “impossible to speak about Russia in a positive light.”

Last week, after being contacted to comment on the Panama Papers before their publication, Peskov issued a cryptic statement, warning that a Western smear campaign against Putin is coming. He warned that journalists and Western spy agencies were trying to attack Putin ahead of the 2018 presidential election.

The opposition in Russia, however, has flocked to praise it. Alexey Navalny, the famous anti-corruption blogger, has said the leaks are “not even the tip of the iceberg” that represents the Kremlin’s offshore dealings. In his blog, he wrote that all the files were only extracted from just one Panama law firm and the cover-up was likely much wider.

Three of the top Twitter 10 trends in Russia were in reference to the scandal, including one hashtag that was simply #offshore.

Open Russia, the London-based organization of Putin’s once great rival Mikhail Khodorkovsky, also chimed in. The foundation and its activists have been tweeting about the reports and the official page of Open Russia said: “The most interesting thing is now what the state news agencies will do when they cannot avoid the offshore scandal.”

Dmitry Gudkov, often referred to as Russian parliament’s only MP in opposition to Putin’s United Russia party, mocked the Russian lack of coverage on Twitter. “Thank God,” he wrote. “The offshore investigation, if one is to believe state media, does not concern us.”

Meanwhile, Nadya Tolokonnikova, member of anti-Putin protest group Pussy Riot, retweeted a post that simply reads “they have uncovered 1 percent of Putin’s total wealth.

 

Panama Papers put Putin funds in Zurich

Scene of the leak: the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama City

(Keystone)

A 2.6 terabyte data leak out of a law office in Panama has revealed a staggering amount of questionable banking activity around the world – including Switzerland.

Of the ten financial institutions requesting the most offshore companies for clients, four are Swiss.

 

 

 

Panama Law Firm's Leaked Files Detail Offshore Accounts Tied to ...

New York Times-Apr 4, 2016

Panama Law Firm's Leaked Files Detail Offshore Accounts Tied to ... of wealthy individuals, including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, ...

Panama Papers: Vladimir Putin associates, Jackie Chan identified in ...
ABC Online-Apr 4, 2016

Panama Papers put Putin funds in Zurich
Opinion-swissinfo.ch-Apr 4, 2016

Leaked Panama Files Spark Reactions Globally
In-Depth-Wall Street Journal-Apr 4, 2016

Panama Papers: Unprecedented Leak Reveals $2 Billion Offshore ...
Blog-Slate Magazine (blog)-Apr 3, 2016

Q&A: What are the Panama Papers?
Opinion-New Zealand Herald-Apr 3, 2016

 

Panama Papers: What Is the Scandal and How Is Putin Linked?

Newsweek-Apr 4, 2016

The so-called Panama Papers, leaked over the weekend, detail ... by Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm—that were handed to ...

Massive Document Leak Reveals Offshore Accounts Of World Leaders
NPR-Apr 3, 2016

Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin
Highly Cited-The Guardian-Apr 4, 2016

Panama Papers: Secret records reveal money network tied to ...
Opinion-Irish Times-Apr 3, 2016

'Goebbels had less-biased articles': Public slams MSM for Putin ...
International-RT-Apr 4, 2016

Massive leak reveals money rings of global leaders
In-Depth-CNBC-Apr 3, 2016

 

 

 

 

Miscellaneous References:

 

Donald Trump Acknowledges His Campaign Team Kind of Sucks

Gabrielle Bluestone

Remember when Donald Trump declared, ad naseum, that he’d hire only the “greatest minds” as president? Well that’s not going so well. The New York Times reports Trump had a closed-door meeting this week with Reince Priebus and several other top Republican National Committee members, during which he apparently acknowledged he had not exactly hired the best and brightest to work on his campaign.

According to the Times, the conversation centered mainly around two things: His disrespect for the Republican party and his ignorance of how delegates work, the latter of which apparently led him to criticize his own team in front of everyone.

Trump is currently protesting the disbursement of delegates in Louisiana, where he won the primary but will likely walk away with less delegates than Ted Cruz, thanks to “peculiarities in the state’s system” that Trump’s campaign was apparently unaware of.

The situation in Louisiana infuriated Mr. Trump, who threatened this week to sue the Republican National Committee over it.

But when Mr. Priebus explained that each campaign needed to be prepared to fight for delegates at each state’s convention, Mr. Trump turned to his aides and suggested that they had not been doing what they needed to do, the people briefed on the meeting said.

Those aides, the Times reports, included his son, Donald J. Trump Jr.; his campaign manager, who was arrested last week for manhandling a reporter, Corey Lewandowski; his national political director Michael Glassner; and his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks.

For a man whose entire platform is, “I don’t know how this thing works but I will hire people who do,” this is... less than reassuring.