Month: March 2017

When a whole party goes crazy, this is what happens

by digby

I don’t think we can underestimate how important it is that Trump came along when the GOP was at peak crazy. He probably couldn’t have made it if that weren’t true. They are, in a slightly different way, just as looney and dangerous as he is, and their lunacy enables his.

This article in the Guardian get to that issue:

Sure, Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham vow to hold Trump to account. But the rest of them are profiles in moral weakness, prepared to turn two blind eyes to the actions of the president simply because he wears the right party colours. So Devin Nunes, chair of the House intelligence committee, which should be investigating all this, says “there’s nothing there”. His colleague Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House oversight committee, declined to look into the Flynn affair because “it’s taking care of itself”. Oversight, it seems, is precisely the right word. But please don’t get the impression that Chaffetz is lethargic in his supervisory duties. On the contrary, there’s one scandal he’s very keen to investigate even now: Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Remember that? “Lock her up,” the Republicans chanted throughout 2016, believing that Clinton had put sensitive information at risk. The email affair dominated coverage and fatally damaged her campaign. Well, it turns out that as governor of Indiana, vice-president Mike Pence also used a private email account to conduct state business, including sensitive security matters and counter-terrorism, and that account was promptly hacked. Pence kept strangely quiet about that.

‘You never forget meeting a Russian’: late night hosts on Sessions’ recusal
You see, it’s not just Trump. This week Republicans waved through yet more of the president’s absurd cabinet appointments. In comes Ben Carson, who had earlier declared himself unfit to head any department because he had “no experience”: he will be in charge of housing and urban development. Republicans also ratified Rick Perry as energy secretary: Perry famously forgot, in a 2011 presidential debate, that energy was one of the departments he wanted to abolish.

It’s Republicans who are making a mockery of Trump’s claim to speak for the forgotten millions by planning a tax cut that will send billions of dollars into the pockets of the very richest. It’s Republicans who devoted years to denouncing Obamacare, promising to replace it with a system that would miraculously provide better healthcare to more people for less money. Now that they’re in charge, that’s been exposed as the magical thinking it always was. Trump is the face of that idiocy – saying this week that, “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated”, when in fact everybody but him and the blowhards on Fox News knew precisely that many, many years ago.

But we can’t just point the finger at, and pray for the downfall of, Donald Trump. He is merely the face of a deeper Republican malaise. The hypocrisies he embodies extend far beyond him. For decades, Republicans cast themselves as the party of family values, wagging their finger at anyone who had fallen short of the moral standards they set. But when Trump came along, promising them the tax cuts and seats on the supreme court they craved, all that went out of the window. Suddenly they were prepared to embrace a thrice-married worshipper of mammon who brags about sexually assaulting women and was happy to assess his own daughter as “a piece of ass”. Note the polling on white evangelical Christians. In 2011 they were the group least likely to accept that a candidate guilty of immoral behaviour in their personal life might nevertheless be able to act ethically as a leader. Now they are the by 2017 to become the most forgiving on that score.

Consider the way Republicans used to claim “freedom” as their own, posing as liberty’s champions. Now it emerges that fewer than half of all Republican voters believe news organisations should be free to criticise political leaders – a freedom that is surely fundamental.

And of course, for decades Republicans wrapped themselves in the flag, claiming a monopoly on patriotism, casting themselves as the heirs to Ronald Reagan and all those who stood strong against Russian authoritarianism. Yet now, delegates to the CPAC ultra-conservative conference will happily wave little Russian flags, so long as they have Trump’s name on them.

It’s natural to direct our fury at Trump and to want to see him gone. But it was the wider American right that, over more than two decades, feasted on bigotry, ignorance and contempt for science, facts and the compromises required by democratic governance – it was that right that incubated Trump and Trumpism. If impeachment and removal from office are ever to be more than a fantasy, it will be Republicans who will have to make it happen. And that will require them to do more than change a president. They will have to change themselves.

This will only happen when they are repudiated by an overwhelming majority of the American people. Unfortunately, that will probably take something so catastrophic it may not be worth it.

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Chart o’ the week

by digby

This shows the difference between Obamacare subsidies and the proposed Republican tax credits under their “replacement” plan. Keep in mind that their idea is that everyone should pay their full premiums up front and then take the meager credit off on their taxes at the end of the year.

You will note that the government would be giving money to people who make over a hundred thousand a year, which is nice for them, I’m sure. Since they have the cash available to spend on their premiums during the year, this is a very nice little tax write off for them.

It should also be noted that there is an argument about whether these tax credits are “refundable” by which they mean that if you ended up owning less in taxes than what the credit provides the government would send you a check for the difference. The Freedom Caucus people really do not like that. If you are such a loser that you pay less in taxes than your meager health insurance tax credits provides then it’s just tough luck.

This will, of course, lead to many more people being uninsured. Something has to give and when you’re living paycheck to paycheck and feeling ok for the moment, a big health insurance bill is the one you’re going to toss over when it comes time to make choices between food, shelter and transportation.

Update:

If Obamacare goes down, Democrats need to find every single one of these people in the red districts and get them to vote in 2018.

As the 115th U.S. Congress deliberates the future of the Affordable Care Act, an interactive map from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides estimates of the number of people in each congressional district who enrolled in a 2016 ACA marketplace health plan and the political party of each district’s representative as of January.

The analysis also includes maps charting the total number of people enrolled under the ACA Medicaid expansion in 2015 in states that implemented the ACA Medicaid expansion, along with the political parties of their governors and U.S. senators. As of January 2017, among states that adopted the Medicaid expansion, 16 have Republican governors, 14 have Democratic governors, and one has an Independent governor. In Washington, D.C., which also expanded Medicaid, the mayor is a Democrat.

The map below shows estimates of ACA Marketplace enrollment as of March 2016 by congressional district, with red and blue districts representing those with a Republican or Democratic congressional representative. Districts with darker shading have a greater number of Marketplace enrollees. Of the 11.5 million Marketplace enrollees nationally, 6.3 million live in Republican districts and 5.2 million live in Democratic districts. Marketplace enrollees per Republican district range from 10,200 enrollees in West Virginia’s District 3 to 96,300 enrollees in Florida’s District 27, with a median of 24,300 enrollees per district. Marketplace enrollees per Democratic district range from 5,200 enrollees in Hawaii’s District 1 to 94,100 enrollees in Florida’s District 10, with a median of 23,600 enrollees per district. The ten congressional districts with the highest number of Marketplace enrollees are all in Florida. There are 17 congressional districts (8 Republican districts and 9 Democratic districts) with over 50,000 enrollees, located in the following states: Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Montana.

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“Go back to your own country”

by digby

This is happening a lot:

Kent police are looking for a gunman who allegedly walked onto a man’s driveway and shot him, saying “Go back to your own country.”

The victim, a 39-year-old Sikh man, was working on his vehicle in his driveway in Kent’s East Hill neighborhood about 8 p.m. Friday when he was approached by an unknown man, Kent police said, after talking with the victim.

An altercation followed, with the victim saying the suspect made statements to the effect of “Go back to your own country.” The victim was shot in the arm.

The victim described the shooter as a 6-foot-tall white man with a stocky build. He was wearing a mask covering the lower half of his face, the victim said.

Kent police say they’ve reached out to the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies.

“We’re early on in our investigation,” Kent Police Chief Ken Thomas said Saturday morning. “We are treating this as a very serious incident.”

Jasmit Singh, a leader of the Sikh community in Renton, said he had been told the victim was released from the hospital.

“He is just very shaken up, both him and his family,” Singh said. “We’re all kind of at a loss in terms of what’s going on right now, this is just bringing it home. The climate of hate that has been created doesn’t distinguish between anyone.”

In a statement Saturday, the Sikh Coalition, a New York-based civil rights group, asked local and federal authorities to investigate the shooting as a hate crime.

Singh said Puget Sound-area Sikh men in particular have reported a rise in verbal abuse and uncomfortable encounters recently, “a kind of prejudice, a kind of xenophobia that is nothing that we’ve seen in the recent past.”

To Singh, the number of incidents targeting members of the religion, which has its roots in the Punjab region of South Asia, recalls the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

“But at that time, it felt like the [presidential] administration was actively working to allay those fears,” he said. “Now, it’s a very different dimension.”

Sikh Coalition Interim Program Manager Rajdeep Singh, in calling for the hate crime investigation, said in a statement: “While we appreciate the efforts of state and local officials to respond to attacks like this, we need our national leaders to make hate crime prevention a top priority. Tone matters in our political discourse, because this a matter of life or death for millions of Americans who are worried about losing loved ones to hate.

These bigoted morons kill Sikhs and Hindus and Muslims because they are too stupid to know they aren’t the same thing. And if Trump and Bannon have their way, they’ll be shooting plenty of other “non-Europeans” too. That’s what they mean when they say “Make America Great Again.” Don’t kid yourself.

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How deep is Trump’s rabbit hole?
by Tom Sullivan

’ChapStick’ surveillance devices similar to those destroyed by FBI Director L. Patrick Gray during Watergate. [Source: National Archives].

How to process yesterday’s rage tweeting by the sitting president that his phones were tapped by President Obama? First, and perhaps foremost, Trump’s non-experience in public office and stunning lack of self-awareness of what he doesn’t know continue to dog him as much as his paranoia and immaturity. Ben Rhodes, an Obama foreign policy advisor, responded:

No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017

Steve Benen sums up the dilemma Trump’s own instability presents for him:

If Trump made this up, the president appears delusional.
If he didn’t, the evidence against Trump must be alarmingly serious.
Either way…. https://t.co/Ms0oESIGlm

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen) March 4, 2017

As Digby pointed out yesterday, this is what comes of a president getting his news from the fever swamps at Breitbart. (Didn’t he have plans for draining swamps?)

The New York Times reports that the White House, rather than tamping down Trump’s rage tweets, is going even deeper down the rabbit hole:

But a senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s chief counsel, was working to secure access to what Mr. McGahn believed to be an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates.

The official offered no evidence to support the notion that such an order exists. It would be a highly unusual breach of the Justice Department’s traditional independence on law enforcement matters for the White House to order it to turn over such an investigative document.

Yes, that would be interfering in an ongoing investigation.

What’s scarier, White House reportedly interfering with investigation or not knowing that saying this is tantamount to a confession?

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) March 4, 2017

Besides Trump not knowing what he’s talking about, there are subtleties to how national intelligence works that many reporting on these matters miss, especially if they write for Breitbart. For unpacking the backstory to the Breitbart piece that inspired the Trump tweets, there’s Marcy Wheeler. It’s a long, detailed post explaining that while it is likely Trump isn’t bugged, “It’s quite likely a number of Trump’s close associates are …” Wheeler concludes:

Based on the assumption there is a FISA order covering at least some of his close associates, but probably not one covering him, understand what has happened here:

1. Trump’s Attorney General, who claims he had already decided to recuse, recused after his nomination lies were exposed, meaning he no longer controls the investigation into his boss
2. A misleading article written in response to that recusal led Trump to claim he was being targeted
3. Based on the claim, Trump sent out his WHCO to find a FISA order probably not targeting him but probably targeting his aides
4. Having just been deprived of visibility and control over the investigation, Trump is forcibly obtaining another way to control it

Bruce Bartlett distilled to an insult Trump’s attempt at creating a Wiretapgate narrative and to stifle the Russian one:

Take Nixon in the deepest days of his Watergate paranoia, subtract 50 IQ points, add Twitter, and you have Trump today.

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) March 4, 2017

But don’t expect Trump to get on his knees and pray, but it may be his staff will. After his speech Tuesday, Trump’s week went downhill as fast as his attorney general’s. CNN reports:

“Nobody has seen him that upset,” one source said, adding the feeling was the communications team allowed the Sessions news, which the administration deemed a nonstory, to overtake the narrative.

On Thursday, Sessions recused himself from any current or future investigations into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign after it was reported he had met with the Russian ambassador to the US, something he had previously failed to disclose.

After all the congratulations Trump received for his Tuesday speech, the Russia investigation came roaring back. Of course, Trump blamed his staff. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted yesterday morning, “During the campaign, Trump would routinely kick aides off the plane as a time-out. ‘They hate me because they hate you,’ was a refrain.” That is consistent with what follows in the CNN report:

When the President returned to the White House Thursday evening from a day trip to Virginia, there were “a lot of expletives.” The source said for more than a week Trump had been lamenting that his senior staff “just keep getting in their own way.”

[…]

Trump is upset because he doesn’t believe he is getting credit he thinks he deserves for his time office so far because of self-inflicted wounds and missteps, the source said. An informed presidential ally outside government but close to the President said Trump was really angry about having a “mini disaster” a week. The President’s mood is adding to tremendous pressure inside the West Wing and aides have been seen in tears in recent days at multiple meetings.

Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is on the receiving end of Trump’s tantrums as well, according to CNN. So now Trump has given him a time-out. Although he was on the manifest to accompany Trump to Florida for the weekend, Preibus is remaining in Washington. White House staff deny Priebus was supposed to go, insisting Priebus stayed behind “for a family celebration.”

A lot of Trump’s people soon may need more time with their families.

Saturday Night at the Movies

Acid daze: Deconstructing Sgt. Pepper ***

By Dennis Hartley

Hard to believe that it was 50 years ago today (well, officially, as of June 1st) that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play around with vari-speeding, track bouncing and ambiophonics. Eh…wot?

Considering the relative limitations of recording technology at the time, the sonic wizardry and hardware MacGyvering that resulted in The Beatles’ groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band continues to amaze and fascinate musicians, studio engineers and music fans. For that matter, I bet any Beatle fan would happily buzz in through the bathroom window to have been a fly on the wall at any Beatles session, for any of their albums. Perhaps that’s not the best analogy.

That imagery aside, there is a “next best thing”, thanks to composer and musicologist Scott Freiman, who has created a series of multimedia and film presentations called Deconstructing the Beatles. His latest exploration focuses on the Sgt. Pepper song cycle. Some engagements are personal appearances; others limited-run film versions of the lecture. My review is based on the filmed version, which ran here in Seattle last weekend (you can find upcoming cities/dates here).

Freiman kicks off with deep background on the February 1967 release of the double ‘A’ sided 45 “Strawberry Fields Forever” / “Penny Lane” (although he doesn’t deconstruct the recording sessions as he does for the Sgt. Pepper tracks). I think this is a perfect choice for a launching pad, as those two songs were not only crucial signifiers of the band’s continuing progression from the (seemingly) hard-to-top Revolver, but originally intended to be included as part of Sgt. Pepper.

The remaining three-quarters of the film is a track-by-track journey through the album (in original running order, of course). By playing snippets of isolated audio tracks and subtly stacking them until they transmogrify into their familiar finished form, as well as supplementing with archival photos and flow charts annotating how tracks were reduced and mixed down, Freiman is able to give the viewer a fairly good peek into the unique creative process that went into the Sgt. Pepper sessions. Freiman’s running commentary hits the sweet spot between scholarly and entertaining.

I was a little disappointed that he gives my two favorite cuts, “Getting Better” and “Fixing a Hole” short shrift; especially when compared to the amount of time he spends fixating on three cuts in particular: “She’s Leaving Home”, “Within You, Without You”, and “A Day in the Life”. Not that those aren’t all classics, but you can’t have everything. After all, art is subjective, right?

I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Freiman doing one of his presentations in-person; I imagine it’s more dynamic and engaging than watching what is essentially a filmed lecture (think An Inconvenient Truth). If you’re expecting something along the lines of The Beatles Anthology, this may not be for you. Still, the Fab force is strong in this one, and he obviously holds a genuine affection for the music, which keeps the proceedings from sinking into an academic snooze fest.

Side 2: It was a very good year

While Sgt. Pepper certainly deserves the accolades it has received over the last 5 decades, 1967 was a watershed year for a lot of bands; there was definitely something in the air (or the punch).

Here are 10 more fabulous albums that are blowing out 50 candles this year (goddam, I’m old…).

Cream-Disraeli Gears…Clapton’s psych-blues zenith, Bruce and Baker’s dangerous rhythms, Pete Brown’s batshit crazy lyrics, lorded over by producer/future Mountain man Felix Pappalardi. Best cuts: “Sunshine of Your Love”, “Swlabr” (fuck you, Spellcheck), and “Tales of Brave Ulysses”.

The Doors-The Doors…“He took a face, from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down the hall.” And music would never be the same. Best cuts: All of them.

Jefferson Airplane- Surrealistic Pillow…Luv ‘n’ Haight. Remember, I want you to toss the radio into the bathtub when “White Rabbit” peaks. Get it? Got it? Good! Best cuts: “Somebody to Love”, “White Rabbit”, and “Plastic Fantastic Lover”

Jimi Hendrix Experience- Are You Experienced?…Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful. There ain’t no life, nowhere. And you will never hear surf music, again. Best cuts: “Purple Haze”, “Love or Confusion”, “May This Be Love”, “I Don’t Live Today”, “Third Stone From the Sun”, and “Are You Experienced?”.

The Kinks- Something Else by the Kinks…The genius of Ray Davies cannot be overstated. Every song is an immersive picture postcard of the traditional English life. Brilliant. Best cuts: “Waterloo Sunset”, “Lazy Old Sun”, “Death of a Clown”, “David Watts”, “Afternoon Tea”.

The Moody Blues- Days of Future Passed…Mellotrons R Us. Symphonic rock before anyone thought it was even possible. A thing of beauty. Best cuts: “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Nights in White Satin”.

Pink Floyd- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn…Syd Barrett, before the drugs kicked in for keeps. He’s got a bike, you can ride it if you like. Space rock, ominous dirges and proto prog supreme. Best cuts: “Astronomy Domine”, “Flaming”, “Interstellar Overdrive”, and “Bike”.

Procol Harum- Procol Harum…Gary Brooker’s distinctive voice, Robin Trower’s peerless fretwork, Matthew Fisher’s signature organ riffs and Keith Reid’s wry and literate lyrics made for a heady, proggy brew that didn’t quite sound like anyone else at the time. Still doesn’t, actually. Best cuts: “Conquistador”, “She Wandered Through the Garden Fence”, and “Repent, Walpurgis”.

The Velvet Underground- The Velvet Underground and Nico...In which Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Nico, and Moe Tucker invited the flower children to attend New York art school. However, no one enrolled until about 10 years later, when it came to be called punk rock. Best cuts: “I’m Waiting For the Man”, “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, “Heroin”, and “Femme Fatale”.

The Who- The Who Sell Out…A kind of warm-up for Tommy, The Who’s concept album was constructed to simulate a pirate radio station, with interstitial spoof ads and station jingles linking the cuts together. A very strong song cycle for Pete Townshend. Best cuts: “Armenia City in the Sky”, “Tattoo”, “I Can See For Miles”, “Our Love Was”, “I Can’t Reach You”, and “Sunrise”.

Previous posts with related themes:

Of the beginning: On Revolver at 50

More reviews at Den of Cinema

–Dennis Hartley

The president’s primary source of information

by digby

Yep:

The gloves are off

by digby

These antisemitic hate crimes proliferating all over the country are shocking. I had honestly thought we were past all that here. It just goes to show you that this sort of bigotry just goes underground it doesn’t die.

But there’s another story that’s getting less attention I guess because this one seems so sadly predictable:

Muslims have been shot and killed, execution-style, in their living rooms and outside of their mosques. They have been fatally stabbed on their way home. They have been beaten in their stores, in their schools and on the streets. They have been kicked off airplanes, egged outside Walmart, scorched with hot coffee in a park, shot in cabs and punched while pushing their children in strollers. Their clothes have been set on fire and their children have been bullied. Men have come to their door and told them that they would burn down their house if they did not move away. They have been fired for wearing hijabs and for praying. They have seen their cemeteries vandalized and their Quran desecrated. A Muslim congressman has received death threats, and business owners have posted signs advertising “Muslim-free zones.”

Heavily armed men have protested outside mosques in Texas and Arizona, arguing that it’s their patriotic duty to protect the country from Islam.

People have covered the doors of a mosque with feces and torn pages of the Quran, left a severed pig’s head outside a mosque, firebombed mosques, urinated on mosques, spray-painted the Star of David and satanic symbols on mosques, carved swastikas and crude drawings of penises into signs at mosques, set fire to mosques, threatened to blow up mosques and kill “you Muslim f****,” fired rounds from high-powered rifles into mosques, wrapped bacon around the door handles of mosques, left hoax bombs and fake grenades at mosques, threatened to decapitate congregants at mosques, sent suspicious substances to mosques, written notes saying, “We hate you,” “We will burn all of you” and “Leave our country” to mosques, rammed a tractor-trailer into a mosque, thrown bricks and stones through the windows of mosques, pelted Muslims with rocks as they left mosques and stood outside mosques shouting, “How many of you Muslims are terrorists?”

American Muslims have been told that a mosque, unlike churches and synagogues, cannot serve as an election polling station. Dozens of communities have fought to keep Muslims from building mosques in their neighborhoods, sometimes threatening violence.

From 2001 to 2015, there were 2,545 anti-Islamic incidents targeting 3,052 Muslims, according to the FBI. Last year, anti-Muslim hate times surged 67%, reaching a level of violence not seen since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and many Muslims believe hate crimes are underreported by victims and not pursued vigorously by police and prosecutors. This year, the FBI has begun counting anti-Arab incidents as well.

Politicians have claimed that 85% of mosques are controlled by Islamic extremists and that Islam is a political system, not a religion, and thus not protected by the First Amendment. They have threatened to “arrest every Muslim that comes across the state line” and pledged to bar Muslim refugees from the country. They have sanctioned spying on mosques without warrants and the racial profiling of Muslim communities. They have accused Muslims of launching a “civilizational jihad” and called Islam a “cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out.” They have shut down schools over lessons on Islam and called innocuous school materials dangerous propaganda. More than 30 states have considered bills to “protect” their civil courts from Islamic law, and nine states (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee) enacted the bans. They have said Muslims cannot be president of the United States. They have said Muslims should not be here at all.

Challenged about Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States, his spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, said, “So what? They’re Muslim.”

A coterie of well-funded pundits and self-proclaimed experts encourage Americans to fear all Muslims and the “creeping” influence of Islamic law in the United States. They cast Muslims as “enemies among us,” Trojan horses for an insurgency that will topple the republic and conquer its citizens.

One of those self-proclaimed experts is Steve Bannon, special adviser to the president.

I’m just putting this out there because it’s obvious that this sort of violence is rapidly escalating. Muslims, Jews, armed raids and deportations of Latinos. And you can bet that the new plans to let cops have free rein is going to result in much more violent confrontation with African Americans.

This stuff was happening before, mostly under the radar, without social approbation and under legal restraint. Trump has just told his racist base and the authorities to take the gloves off. It’s going to get a lot worse.

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Follow the money

by digby

I had never read the story of Trump Jr’s comments about Russia back in 2008. It’s quite interesting:

Executive Talk: Donald Trump Jr. bullish on Russia and few emerging markets

The executive vice president of Development and Acquisitions for the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr., is the eldest child and son of famed real estate developer Donald Trump and his first wife Ivana Trump. He currently works with his siblings in buying, selling and franchising prime commercial real estate including hotel towers spanning the entire globe, from the US to Dubai.

Trump, Jr. began work for the Trump Organization on projects such as the West Side Yards and Trump Place on Riverside Drive. Recently, he has focused on the redevelopment of the old Delmonico Hotel and the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago project seen on television show The Apprentice.

At the recent Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, Don Jr. (as he is fondly called) revealed his company’s serious intent in getting into the emerging markets world over.

For Trump, Russia is the emerging market worth investing in currently, however in caveat into the high-end sector he counts on his international experience in the market. Trump said: “The emerging world in general attributes such brand premium to real estate that we are looking all over the place, primarily Russia. There are countries that have not been fully tapped by us such as Thailand, Vietnam and Argentina. We are currently looking at potential deals. Our interest is really everywhere because there is a lot of new money in the emerging markets which appeal to certain brands whether ego-driven or having the life-jacket effect that we feel gives added-value to our investment.” According to him, he has been to basically all the emerging markets in the last six months or this summer searching for good deals.

If he were to choose his top A-list for investments in the emerging world, Trump said his firm would choose China and Russia. “Given what I’ve seen in Russia’s real estate market as of late relative to some of the emerging markets, the country seems to have a lot more natural strength, especially in the high-end sector where people focus on price per square-meter,” he said.

“In Russia, I really prefer Moscow over all cities in the world. Unlike other countries in the world, this country has five major cities where people would at least be happy being close to living in the metro.

“In Russia, if one has made money anywhere in the country, you would want your place in Moscow.”

However, to a certain degree, some US investors have had concerns over Russia. “Well, that’s happening, too. After spending half a dozen trips to Russia in the last 18 months, several buyers have been attracted to our projects there and everything associated therewith. But it is definitely not an issue of being able to find a deal – but an issue of ‘Will I ever see my money back out of that deal or can I actually trust the person I am doing the deal with?’ As much as we want to take our business over there, Russia is just a different world. Though the legal structure is in place for what we have today, and even 99 percent is covered, that 1 percent not covered could be 100 percent covered over there because it is a question of who knows who, whose brother is paying off who, etc.,” Trump said, adding, “It really is a scary place.”

Despite a current government that projects a ramrod posture, to Trump the current leaders even make the scene more scary. Holding back his grin, he said, “It’s so transparent – everything’s so interconnected that it really does not matter what is supposed to happen as what it is they want to happen is ultimately what happens.” He has had multiple deals but he’s open with his partners despite what it is that keeps him up at night has to do with knowing that he has to face the “issues forever including money coming back…or not.

“And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble,” he said.

Trump Jr. also oversees the Trump International Hotel and Tower SoHo project along with The Apprentice reality show winner Sean Yazbeck. The organization has launched last year the sale of penthouses in the Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium in New York in the UAE market. This property is the only luxury hotel condo in Manhattan’s fashionable SoHo neighborhood.

Aside from the former Soviet state, India is also another place in which Trump thinks investment opportunities are ripe. He said that he likes India as much as China. But he said, “I don’t know if there’s much growth potential as China’s. Yet at the same time, with India gaining some of the benefits of colonial rule for a long time, India’s legal structure is a little simpler for Western investors to get in. It has a different mentality while there is still natural corruption like we see in many emerging markets. India, I think, is a little bit more refined than China and Russia which remain the Wild West.”

From a boutique perspective, Trump Jr. said they would like to expand their hotel brands and spend much time focusing on the management side. “We tend to look at Vietnam and we’re doing a couple of projects in Thailand. We’ve had incredible focus too in the Middle East, launching in Dubai with a force to reckon with,” he said.

The Trump Organization and Nakheel Properties, the developer of more than $30 billion in real estate in Dubai, have signed a deal in October 2005 creating Trump’s International Hotel and Tower. Both companies have invested substantially in the pioneering $US600 million development spread across a portfolio of eight hotels and resorts including the 800-unit condo-hotel of the US mogul. Trump’s tower is the initial development in Nakheel and The Trump Organization’s exclusive joint venture in the Middle East. Further, Trump Organization’s agreement with Nakheel includes exclusive rights for 19 countries in the Middle East region and 17 major brands.

in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble

He’s obviously talking about Russian investments in Trump projects around the world and in the US, not about Trump investments in Russia. I don’t know that that was clear to me before. So when Trump says he doesn’t have any “deals in Russia” he might be telling the truth. But he probably has lots of “deals with Russians” which is a different kettle of fish.

I hate to get into too much speculation about this stuff but it does seem to me that the old adage “follow the money” is the most likely to produce some answers.

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Speaking of sick guys

by digby

I guess this is a-ok with all the Republicans who voted for that deranged man in the White House:

A 22-year-old undocumented immigrant arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday after speaking to the media about her family’s detention is set to be deported without a court hearing, her attorney said on Thursday.

Daniela Vargas, who came to the U.S. from Argentina when she was 7 years old, previously had a work permit and deportation reprieve under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Her DACA status expired last November, and because she was saving money for the renewal — which costs $495 — her new application wasn’t received until Feb. 10.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for ICE said Vargas would go through court proceedings to determine whether she is eligible for some type of relief, adding that the agency would take no further action until those proceedings were completed.

But Abby Peterson, Vargas’ attorney, said ICE agents told her on Thursday that they would instead pursue immediate deportation without a court hearing or bond because Vargas entered the country through the visa waiver program, which allows certain foreign nationals to enter the U.S. for under 90 days without a visa. (Argentina was previously part of the program, although it no longer is.) Individuals who use the visa waiver program have no right to a hearing or to contest their removal unless they are seeking asylum.

Peterson argued that the facts of Vargas’ case should be considered, including that she received DACA relief and had reapplied to the program.

“She was 7 years old at the time [she came to the U.S.],” Peterson said. “She didn’t waive those rights, her parents waived those rights. And now she’s an adult trying to assert her own rights.”

An ICE spokesman said the agency has no additional comment on Vargas’ case and directed The Huffington Post to the statement it made on Wednesday.

She was 7 years old at the time [she came to the U.S.]. She didn’t waive those rights, her parents waived those rights. And now she’s an adult trying to assert her own rights.

Vargas’ father and brother were detained on their way to work on Feb. 15. After her father was apprehended in the driveway, Vargas hid in the house for hours until ICE agents came in with a warrant, wielding guns. Agents questioned Vargas about her DACA status — an ICE official claimed she said she had it — but let her go.

Remember. The ICE agents are THRILLED with Trump. He’s let them “take off the shackles.” And now they’re having fun.

Yes, Trump is unstable. Why do you ask?


by digby

You have undoubtedly seen this dumpster fire already but in case you haven’t:

Here’s the thing:

If anyone wire tapped Trump Tower then, they must have had some proof that that something was going on.

Good job Trump. You just opened up a new avenue of suspicion.

Update:

This is where he got it

.