July 24, 2018: Trump Announces Welfare Program for Farmers - and Finally Realizes Russian Hack U.S. Elections

 

7/24/18: Trump announces via Twitter that his trade policies are the best trade policies since Hawley-Smoot (1928). “Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that – and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the ‘piggy bank’ that’s being robbed. All will be Great!” 

A few hours later the Trump administration announces plans to offer $12 billion worth of “temporary relief” to farmers who are already being hurt by retaliatory tariffs implemented by other countries. An official for the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls this a “one-time” program to help producers of soybeans, cotton, sorghum, wheat, dairy, and hog products get by. 

Once again, a stupid tweet has passed for Trump policy. NBC notes that even Republicans don’t like this move. Sen. Ben Sasse said the president’s policies are “going to make it 1929 again.” Sen. Corker of Tennessee calls the idea “welfare” for farmers. And we all know how much Republicans hate welfare.

 

We know Trump likes to say NBC is “Fake News.” So let’s quote Republicans, via Politico’s reporting: 

“This is becoming more and more like a Soviet type of economy here [emphasis always added, unless noted]: Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers, commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “I’m very exasperated. This is serious.” 

“Taxpayers are going to be asked to initial checks to farmers in lieu of having a trade policy that actually opens and expands more markets. There isn’t anything about this that anybody should like,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader. 

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said “this bailout compounds bad policy with more bad policy.”  

The frustration was shared by House Republicans. Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington, who chairs a subcommittee on trade, said the policy might be helpful to farmers in the short term but that it does little to preserve market access lost due to tariffs. “Some in the ag community, they say, ‘That’s great, thank you for the help’ – except that the problem then becomes we’ve lost the market, so how do we get the market back?” he said. “That’s the question.”

 

* 

A yacht with anti-missile defenses. 

TRUMP ENDS ANOTHER WILD DAY with a stunning admission. He finally realizes the Russians do hack U.S. elections. It only took two years for the Slow-Learner-in-Chief to work this all out. 

He announces his discovery in a tweet. “I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election,” he cries. “Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!” 

Yeah. Why would they be happy to keep the Crimea?  

And why would they be happy to see Trump end sanctions, which he has said he’s willing to consider? How much dough is beyond reach of various Russian oligarchs and corrupt Russian firms? It would be hard to overestimate how much loot they have stashed away in other countries. Often, laundered money has been used to buy assets like jewelry, fine art, vintage cars, multiple mansions, and luxury apartments in Trump Tower (New York). 

Cough, cough.

 

Example Number One: Consider the divorce case of one oligarch, who sold out his stake in the Russian gas producing company Nortgas and moved to Great Britain. He and his ex-wife are arguing about assets, including their favorite boat. Farkhad Akhmedov decided to use some of the cash he spirited out of Russia, before sanctions were in play, to buy a little pleasure craft. 

 

A nine-deck beauty (above), with a crew of 50, two helipads for choppers, a 65-foot swimming pool, a mini-submarine and, yes, anti-missile defenses, the 380-foot Luna is worth an estimated $500 million. 

Now a judge has ordered the oligarch to turn over the helm to his ex-wife as part of a $635 million settlement. 

How rich are these oligarchs? Mr. Akhmedov and his wife are sitting on a $1.51 billion fortune.

 

If you look at a list of crooked billionaires drawn up by the U.S. Treasury Department, as part of last year’s sanctions package, you notice names that will be familiar to those who follow the Mueller probe. Akhmedov is on the list. So is Aras Agalarov, who helped set up the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016. Also making an appearance on that list: Sergei Gorkov, a banker with whom Jared Kushner met secretly in early 2017; Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought – at a highly-inflated price – a Palm Beach mansion from Donald J. Trump a decade ago; and Viktor Vekselberg, who had a secret meeting with Michael Cohen at Trump Tower in January 2017. 

The list keeps growing when you do a little cross-checking. It includes Igor Sechin, Chief Executive Officer of Rosneft, with whom it is alleged Trump campaign adviser Carter Page met in Moscow (Page at first denied meeting  any top Russians; but he later admitted he did). Also listed is Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire and owner of the Chelsea Football Club. Abramovich is known to be a close friend of Ivanka Trump and her husband. As Newsweek recently reported, “In 2014, the Kushners spent four days in Russia after Abramovich’s wife, Dasha Zhukova, invited them.” Let’s not forget Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate alleged to have ties to Russian crime syndicates. Deripaska has a lengthy history of business ties to Paul Manafort and Rick Gates (the former currently ensconced in jail; the latter cooperating with the Mueller investigation and therefore not presently behind bars). 

Last, but not least, throw in Sergey Ivanov, last seen sitting at a table with General Michael Flynn, Vladimir Putin, and Jill Stein, of the Green Party – at a celebration in Moscow in December 2015.