Skip to content

Month: July 2017

Conservatives without conscience again by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 15, 2017

Conservatives without conscience again
by Tom Sullivan


Link to tweet here.

After decades of accusations from conservatives that the American left advances reprehensible moral relativism, this week we saw that the real sin was having morals of any kind. What the Trump family modeled for the world this week is what it looks like to have none. Watergate veteran John Dean warned during the Bush II administration of the rise of “Conservatives Without Conscience.” The Trumps consider that lack a plus.

“What stood out most in the interview was the moral emptiness of the president’s son,” Slate‘s William Saletan wrote after Donald Trump Jr. appeared with Sean Hannity to explain away his meeting last June with a Russian emissary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. What looks to be a willingness to conspire with a hostile foreign power to undermine an American election, Trump Jr. dismissed as no big deal. “That’s what we do in business. If there’s information out there, you want it.” He might have done things differently, but he’d done nothing wrong.

President Trump remarked, “I think from a practical standpoint, most people would have taken that meeting.” Most people named Trump.

Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin disagrees. She builds on an earlier column from David Brooks accusing the Trumps of being naked capitalists with “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code.” Rubin sees a much deeper rot underneath the Republican standard-bearer, a party animated by decades of demonization of the Other, by a distorted sense of reality — indeed, the party has constructed an alternative one more to its liking — and by a pervasive and conditioned sense of victimhood. Mixed with Clinton derangement. “Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria,” she writes, “does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.” Rubin continues:

We have always had in our political culture narcissists, ideologues and flimflammers, but it took the 21st-century GOP to put one in the White House. It took elected leaders such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and the Republican National Committee (not to mention its donors and activists) to wave off Trump’s racists attacks on a federal judge, blatant lies about everything from 9/11 to his own involvement in birtherism, replete evidence of disloyalty to America (i.e. Trump’s “Russia first” policies), misogyny, Islamophobia, ongoing potential violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause (along with a mass of conflicts of interests), firing of an FBI director, and now, evidence that the campaign was willing to enlist a foreign power to defeat Clinton in the presidential election.

Out of its collective sense of victimhood came the GOP’s disdain for not just intellectuals but also intellectualism, science, Economics 101, history and constitutional fidelity. If the Trump children became slaves to money and to their father’s unbridled ego, then the GOP became slaves to its own demons and false narratives. A party that has to deny climate change and insist illegal immigrants are creating a crime wave — because that is what “conservatives” must believe, since liberals do not — is a party that will deny Trump’s complicity in gross misconduct. It’s a party as unfit to govern as Trump is unfit to occupy the White House. It’s not by accident that Trump chose to inhabit the party that has defined itself in opposition to reality and to any “external moral truth or ethical code.”

I’ll note that the Republican party continues to press forward in a near-Ahabish pursuit of abolishing Obamacare and immiserating millions of Americans so it can pass tax cuts for its wealthy patrons. Two (and maybe a few more) of its senators may yet have “what passes for a crisis of conscience” in balking at passing “savage cuts” to Medicaid in the repeal bill, according to Ford Vox, a physician specializing in rehabilitation medicine and a journalist writing for CNN. He observes the same empathy-challenged nature Dean reported from Robert Altemeyer’s research on authoritarians:

What neither side [of the GOP split] acknowledges, nor even seems aware of, is another moral divide that exists in the shadow of the Medicaid battle. It is created by politicians who cannot resist offering extraordinary, extremely expensive and rickety lifelines to individuals whose suffering makes the TV news. At the same time, they are entertaining dramatic and life-wrecking cuts to the basic humanitarian care we provides to millions of poor Americans — children, disabled and elderly.

They’ll spare no expense when there’s a name and a face behind a need, but if they don’t know for sure which of their fellow citizens might benefit, pennies get pinched, and dollars slashed.

And that’s why you will be going back to your phones and faxes again this weekend.

Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on July 15, 2017

Friday Night Soother

by digby

Five fluffy Cheetah cubs made their public debut this week at Australia’s Monarto Zoo.

Born in March to mother Kesho, the cubs immediately began exploring their new environment after bonding with Kesho in a private den for about three months.

One of the cubs is a male, and the other four are females. They each weigh about 15 pounds and are described as “very adventurous.”

The prospect of adding four potential breeding females to the Cheetah population is thrilling for the Monarto Zoo staff. Cheetahs are listed as Vulnerable to Extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Only about 6,700 Cheetahs remain in the wild, primarily in eastern and southwestern Africa, half of what it was 35 years ago.  As their habitats are fragmented into smaller pieces by the expansion of farms, grazing lands, and cities, the Cats have less space to roam and less prey to eat. Cheetahs are also killed by ranchers who fear that the cats are killing their livestock.

Breeding programs, like those at Monarto Zoo and other zoos around the world, offer hope for the future. Animals are carefully matched based on their “pedigree” or genetic background, with the goal of maintaining a high level of genetic diversity in Cheetahs under human care.

Zooborns

Daddy Dearest

Published by digby on July 14, 2017

Daddy Dearest

by digby

This isn’t the first time Trump has put his own family in jobs for which they have no qualifications. 

Donald Trump has a long history of putting family members in leadership and executive management positions regardless of experience, knowledge, or competence. During my time working for Trump, I watched him delegate major responsibility to both his then-wife Ivana and his brother Robert, despite the fact that neither had any background or understanding of the casino industry. 

At one point in Trump’s Atlantic City casino development career, he was actually the dominant player. He owned one of the most profitable casinos in the United States — Trump Plaza — and was developing the largest property in the US, Trump Taj Mahal. He also owned the underperforming Trump Castle, which was a property with huge potential if managed properly. 

All he had to do was hire the right people to develop and manage these three casinos, and he would have been the most successful casino operator of his time. 

What Trump did, however, is turn to family to oversee two of these casinos. He placed Ivanaat Trump Castle despite her having little to no business experience. I believe that Ivana failed miserably due to gross overspending, lack of market knowledge, and poor management skills. While there were differing reports for why Trump fired her ranging from flattening growth to personal issues, I believe he was forced to remove her due to her incompetence. 

I have always believed Donald put Ivana in this position because he has ultimate faith in family. His believes that family will never turn on him, and that family represents ultimate loyalty. As we have learned in the early days of the Trump presidency, he puts a huge premium on loyalty. This is more important to him than expertise. Just ask James Comey and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. 

Similarly, when Trump was forced to put someone in charge of the struggling development at the Taj Mahal, he tapped his brother Robert. Robert was given the monumental task of finishing the construction and getting the property open after the death of the former developer in a helicopter accident. 

Again, with virtually no experience managing or building a casino, let alone the largest casino development in the world, Robert Trump was, I believe, thrust into a role he was doomed to fail in simply because he was family.
The Taj Mahal debacle ultimately cost Donald Trump everything in Atlantic City. The disastrous opening of the property was the beginning of the end for Trump as a casino operator. And while Robert is not to blame for the collapse in Atlantic City, a more experienced industry executive would have given the property at least a fighting chance for success. 

Both Ivana Trump and Robert Trump are victims of Donald Trump himself. He is solely to blame for their demise in Atlantic City. And as I watched Donald Trump Jr. become the new face of the Russian election scandal, one can only blame the president himself.

Trump is a mobster who basically ran a money laundering operation. Mobsters hire their family (or “made men”) because they will go to jail before they will betray their own.

That’s who he is. His voters are fine with his dishonest, cheating, criminal behavior because they agree that it makes him smart:

That Makes Me Smart

About these weird claims that Clinton was the real Russian colluder …

Published by digby on July 14, 2017

About these weird claims that Clinton was the real Russian colluder …

by digby

This piece at the Intercept shows that Guccifer 2.0 contacted a reporter shortly after the Junior meeting which was advertised to show that Clinton was in cahoots with the Russians (or something) and offered up the DNC hack. He didn’t say anything about Clinton’s alleged ties to Moscow, however.  I don’t know what that means but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

Meanwhile, this whole thing jogged my memory of a bizarre story back in August 2016 that came and went:

Is this Hillary Clinton‘s biggest lie yet? Amid claims that Donald Trump pressured Russian hackers to breach her emails, a new report claims that SHE is the presidential candidate who is actually conspiring with Vladimir Putin‘s countrymen!

A report released on Monday called “From Russia With Money — Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset and Cronyism” exposes new claims about Clinton’s secret international connections.

While serving as secretary of state, for example, Clinton and President Obamabegan an attempt to improve relations with Russia, calling their plan the “Russian Reset.” Clinton even presented Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov with a red button that was meant to say “reset” in Russian but instead translated “overcharged,” according to CNN.

The report, authored by Clinton Cash writer Peter Schweizer, details Clinton’s ties to the Russians, specifically involving “Skolkovo,” a Silicon Valley-like campus for developing “biomed, space, nuclear and IT technologies” The New York Post reported.

Schweizer wrote, “Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process — on both the Russian and U.S. sides — had major financial ties to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties.”

The Clinton Foundation has long been accused of associating with questionable donors and financial irregularities and the Russian ties add another layer of international suspicion. “Of the 28 US, European and Russian companies that participated in Skolkovo, 17 of them were Clinton Foundation donors,” Schweizer told The New York Post.

PHOTOS:‘Erratic & Violent:’ Clinton Terrorized White House Staff, Says Secret Service Agent

Schweizer went on to tell The Post that Skolkovo actually made America less safe, because it “shared advanced US technology that Russia can develop for both civilian and military applications, a concern raised already by Army and FBI officials.”

The reset attempt was not successful, however, and faded out in 2011 when Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Clinton of inciting Russian protests. He said Clinton “sent a signal” to “some actors in our country,” The New York Times reported.

“We don’t have an email or a pirated voice mail message saying, ‘We’ll give you money if you help us with Skokovo,’” Schweizer told The Post. “But what we do have is a pattern that shows a high percentage of participants in Skolkovo who happen to be Clinton Foundation donors.

PHOTOS:On The Warpath! Hillary Clinton’s Secret Violent ‘Rages’ Exposed In New Tell-All: Shattered Glasses, Smashed Cellphones & More!

Schweizer said that in the end, Clinton and the Russians win, but Americans lose. “I think that everybody at the Russian reset table seems to walk away with something,” he added. “The Clintons, they get their donations and speaking fees in the millions of dollars. The Russians get access to advanced US technology. The tech companies [that participated in the reset, including Cisco, Intel, Microsoft] get special access to the Russian market and workforce … But the American people get nothing. In fact, we get a rival — Russia — with enhanced technological capabilities. At best, that makes them a tougher competitor.” Schweizer said. He insisted that people “follow the money.”

Clinton has yet to comment on the scandal.

Story developing.

Recall also that that the New York Times and the Washington Post validated that joker Schweizer by partnring with him and his sleazy hit job “Clinton Cash.” They didn’t pick this up as far as I know, but it was circulating in the fever swamp like crazy at the time and it was a sort of underground “Clinton Foundation” story that informed a lot of the mainstream media’s Drudge addicted attitude toward Clinton. Which was, of course, the whole point.

I don’t know what this means, but I thought I’d throw it out there as just another little reminder of the propaganda that was swirling in the right wing during this period. It still is.

.

I think we’ve found our new press secretary

Published by digby on July 14, 2017

I think we’ve found our new press secretary

by digby

Fox News’ Jesse Watters:

“Donald Trump’s family has done more for this country than any Democratic elected official.

“He has created more jobs, real estate — the hotel, the casino industry, he has created more wealth than anybody in this entire country. You can smear that is mafia, unpatriotic, to do that is absolutely shameful. I think everybody needs to wake up and realize that his family as a patriotic family. What is happening right now is a coup against the will of the American people.”

Trump had to love that. I won’t be surprised to see him tweeting out that coup line any minute now.

Watch your back Spicey.

Update: Oh dear. They are all losing it:

.

Trump’s laundry operation

Published by digby on July 14, 2017

Trump’s laundry operation

by digby

I wrote about the other Russian connection for Salon today — the mob:

On Air Force One on Thursday, President Trump actually took questions from reporters but there was some confusion about whether or not the exchange was on the record. The White House later released a transcript that left out a couple of things. Since reporters were released from their agreement to keep it off the record, they filled in the blanks:

So we are getting closer to an admission that our president knew that representatives of the Russian government wanted to help him win the election. He simply doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong with that.

We know for sure that he doesn’t think there’s anything unusual about it. He told the reporters:

Honestly, in a world of politics, most people are going to take that meeting. If somebody called and said, hey — and you’re a Democrat — and by the way, they have taken them — hey, I have really some information on Donald Trump. You’re running against Donald Trump. Can I see you? I mean, how many people are not going to take the meeting?

When asked about it again during his press conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, he said the same thing.

Donald Trump used to brag about doing business with Russians. He told David Letterman back in 2013 “I’ve done a lot of business with the Russians, I know the Russians very well. They’re smart and they’re tough and they’re not looking so dumb right now.” That was around the time of the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, when Trump was tight with billionaire oligarch Aras Agalarov, also known as Putin’s builder, and his pop star son Emin, both of whom were instrumental in the “Hillary dirt” meeting with Donald Jr. After years of trying fruitlessly to get a Trump project off the ground in the country, he had finally succeeded in making the contact who could make his dream come true.

According to Michael Isikoff at Yahoo, it was a typical Trump arrangement in which Agalarov would build the tower and license Trump’s name for big dollars. Donald Jr. was put it charge and Ivanka even made a trip in 2014 to see the proposed property. Unfortunately for the Trumps, the project got shelved when the Russian economy went south due to the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union following the Russian incursion into Crimea (something President Trump is now in a position to “fix”).

Agalarov told Forbes back in March that he was still on board the Trump train and that “anything Trump related I would be interested to pursue. I think today the Trump brand is stronger all over the world. And him being the president; I mean, it’s a big brand now.” Indeed it is.

Nonethless, Trump was all over the map about his involvement with Russia during the campaign, saying in one breath that he was good pals with Vladimir Putin and another denying that he’d ever had anything to do with Russia in any way, shape or form. In his first press conference as president he said, “I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia.”

But asking if Trump has investments in Russia was never the right question. The question to ask was whether any Russians had investments in Donald Trump. Some years back Donald Trump Jr. told a real estate conference, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” When writer James Dodson asked how the Trumps were able to finance their purchase of golf courses during the recession when credit had all dried up, Eric Trump told him, “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” (Eric Trump has denied he ever said this.)

Nonetheless it has been difficult to analyze Trump’s financing arrangements since his company is family-owned and he refuses to release his tax returns or detail his holdings in any useful way. We know Trump was cited numerous times for money-laundering in his Atlantic City casinos. (I wrote about that here.) But this blockbuster article by Craig Unger in the New Republic confirms that Trump has been financed for years by Russian mobsters who have laundered money through his high-end real estate projects. And when I say Russian mobsters I’m talking about the most powerful Russian mobsters in the world.

Unger makes clear that he can find no evidence that Trump was ever involved in criminal activity, or knew exactly where the money pouring into his buildings was coming from. He didn’t need to know or want to; if nothing else Trump has finely honed survival instincts. But Unger also documents that criminals and oligarchs lived in and ran illegal activities out of Trump properties, including Trump Tower in Manhattan, for more than 30 years. They provided Trump with some of his most lucrative branding deals, the ones in which he was not required to make any personal investment. The unending flow of Russian money, Unger writes, that “provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics.”

It’s hard to believe that anyone with that kind of criminal exposure would think it was a good idea to run for president. But Trump had been in the public spotlight and had gotten away with it for years. Books were written about his ties to criminals and he’s been sued thousands of time for fraudulent business practices. In his experience, this is just how the world works.

Trump’s comments about his son’s nefarious meeting shows that he believes everyone does whatever it takes to win and use any means at their disposal. He’s so casual about it that it’s obvious that if at some point before he ran for president he was personally offered the help of the Russian FSB, he would have taken it without a second thought. He simply assumes that everyone in the world is exactly like him.

I’m sure there is a clinical term for this but it’s just as easy to simply say that he has the ethos of a mobster. Why wouldn’t he? He’s been doing business with them for years.

.