7/18/17: The nine lives of the Republican
healthcare bill are still being squandered. Once again, a GOP plan dies in the
Senate when four Republican senators announce they won’t vote to allow debate
on the merits.
Trump promised
68 times to repeal and replace Obamacare.
The bill is that bad.
Some insist this marks the end of a
seven-year-long run, during which Republicans voted dozens of times to “repeal
and replace” Obamacare. And need we remind anyone that “repeal and replace” is
what Candidate Trump promised to do 68
times while running for office?
He would kill Obamacare on Day One.
He would make “repeal and replace” look
like child’s play (assuming the child had no pre-existing conditions). Tweeting
in February 2016, Trump promised: “We will immediately repeal and replace
ObamaCare – and nobody can do that like me. We will save $’s and have much
better healthcare!”
With Republican majorities in House and
Senate and rules changes to make it possible to pass the “carefully crafted”
plan by a 51-vote margin, Trump manages to accomplish … nothing.
*
WELL, THEN, how’s the
“witch hunt” going? How many people with ties to the Russian government were in
the meeting with Don Jr. Okay, not one, not two, but three! Even Fox News can’t ignore
the story. It turns out the eighth participant in the meeting which Donald Jr. completely
forgot about was a Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, an expert on adoption and
babies!
Hahaha. No.
Kaveladze works for the Russian oligarch
Aras Agalarov, a man worth $1.96 billion and known for close ties with President Trump, a man
worth $3.5 billion, and Vladimir
Putin, who has spent his time in office wisely, saving his rubles. One source estimates
Putin may have a secret stash of $200 billion.
Anyway, according to a story in Newsweek, Kaveladze
was investigated in 2000, when he was:
…found by
investigators with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to
have helped move more than $1.4
billion on behalf of a large number of Russian and Eastern European
clients through accounts with Citibank in New York and Commercial Bank in San
Francisco.
Technically,
his actions turned out to be legal. But investigators found he filed papers to open 2,000 shell corporations and U.S. bank
accounts in Delaware, “all on behalf of Russian operators that were used
to launder offshore cash coming into the United States.”
As you can see no sensible person would
imagine Kaveladze went to the meeting with Jr. for any other reason except to
talk about babies.
Everyone in the meeting forgot the meeting ever occurred.
6/28/18: I think President Trump had
better hope he gets to appoint about a thousand federal judges, not just
another ideologue from the right to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s place on the
U.S. Supreme Court.
He may need a sympathetic judge sooner than he thinks.
I say this advisedly, as the legal problems of Paul Manafort
continue to multiply and the clear logic behind the F.B.I.’s original interest
in investigating the Trump campaign grows more pronounced. An application for a
search warrant unsealed by the courts Wednesday reveals that the F.B.I. had
evidence Manafort and his wife received a $10 million loan from a
Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
____________________
Lies of
all sorts – even moronic lies.
____________________
More ominously, from the point of view of Manafort and the
president’s whole crew, Reutersexplains:
The search warrant application
also confirmed that Mueller has been investigating Manafort’s role in a June 9,
2016, meeting that he attended at the Trump Tower in New York between Donald
Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer and self-professed Kremlin informant who
purportedly was carrying damaging information on Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic nominee for president.
The FBI sought “communications,
records, documents and other files involving any of the attendees of the June
9, 2016, meeting at Trump tower, as well as Aras and Amin Agalarov,” said the
application, which misspelled the first name of Emin Agalarov.
Aras Agalarov is a Russian
oligarch close to Putin who joined the elder Trump in staging the 2013 Miss
Universe contest in Moscow. His son, Emin, is a popular singer.
Considering all the lies that surround this meeting, you
wonder. Why have so many people involved lied and lied as often as they have?
Of course, we all realize there are different kinds of lies
the President of the United States employs to get through his day. There are
political lies: He will repeal and replace Obamacare with ease.
There are the lies that bolster his ego: I would have won the
popular vote if all those illegal voters hadn’t stormed the polls.
There are the lies he tells loved ones: I did not boink the
porn star. I did not boink that Playboy Bunny. Nor did I boink the housekeeper.
Then there are the lies involving the Russian investigation –
that is, lies to save his orange hide.
Sometimes there are gratuitous lies and on slow days Trump
may even bust out a moronic lie. Trump tells another today at a rally in
Wisconsin. To the applause of his history-impaired fans, he revisits his great
2016 election victory. It’s the greatest ever! The crowd roars. He reminds
everyone, Wisconsin “hadn’t been won by a Republican since Dwight D.
Eisenhower, in 1952.”
Trump beams with that announcement. He’s contemplating his
own greatness. The crowd cheers.
Trump continues: “And I won Wisconsin. And I like Wisconsin a
lot, but we won Wisconsin. And Ronald Reagan, remember, Wisconsin was the state
that Ronald Reagan did not win.”
This is a moronic lie, and one Trump could easily have
avoided – except that he likes to make sh*t up as he goes. The one state Reagan
did not win in 1984, for the sake of accuracy, was Minnesota.
So, Trump is wrong about Reagan and wrong about Minnesota.
If we check the map for 1980, we see Trump is wrong again and
Reagan won Wisconsin then too. You can throw in Eisenhower, winning Wisconsin
in 1956. And you can see Trump reaches the “moron level” when you realize
Richard Nixon won Wisconsin three times. He won Wisconsin in 1960, but lost the
general election, then won again in 1968 and 1972.
Politifact, which checks statements presidents and other
politicians make, awards Trump a “Pants on Fire” rating. This rating is
reserved for the biggest, boldest, most ridiculous lies our leaders tell. This
marks the eightieth time Trump has been cited for a “Pants on Fire”
lie since announcing he would run for office
9/22/18: Yet another book about Trump
and the Russians is scheduled for release. This time it’s Pop Stars, Pageants and Presidents: How an Email Trumped My Life by
Rob Goldstone.
____________________
“Part of
Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Rob Goldstone
____________________
Goldstone is the man who touched the fuse that led to the
explosive meeting of Don Jr., Jared, and Paul Manafort with a team of Russians
bearing gifts, at Trump Tower in the summer of 2016.
I, for one, will not be rushing out to get an autographed
copy of his book; but Goldstone’s insights may be telling. He says he has no
doubt the Russians interfered in the election – and believes the Trump campaign
was open to foreign assistance. Was this a “dirty offer,” he was asked in a recent interview?
“Yes,” he replied. “That is true.”
Goldstone, made a living as a publicist for many years, had
several ties that now interest investigators, and admits he has already spent a total of nine hours talking
to the Mueller team. He once won a spot on The Celebrity Apprentice for a client, Venezuelan actress Patricia
Velasquez. He knew Trump before he became president. In 2012 he took on a new
client, Emin Agalarov, a “Moscow-based crooner.”
The Washington Post
tells the Goldstone story in detail, hinting at potential problems for the
president. In the spring of 2013, Emin and Goldstone, who has dual U.S./British
citizenship and lives in New Jersey, approached Paula Shugart, president of the
Miss Universe Organization. Would she help book a pageant contestant to appear
in one of Emin’s music videos? Not only would she try, but she’d talk to Trump
about a cameo. Shugart mentioned the possibility of bringing the pageant to
Russia. Emin suggested Moscow. He and his father would pay for the move – and would
eventually spend $15 million to host the Miss Universe show.
Eventually, Emin, Goldstone and Emin’s father, Aras Agalarov,
met Trump in Las Vegas, where the Miss USA pageant was being conducted.
Goldstone sat at dinner next to Michael Cohen.
As Goldstone explains:
Trump appeared to hit it off
with Emin Agalarov. At one point during dinner, Trump loudly challenged the
young singer: “‘Hey Emin! I’ll reduce the [pageant] fee right now by a million
dollars if you tell me if you’ve ever slept with any contestants!’” Goldstone
recalled Trump saying.
Agalarov shot back:
“Interesting. I’ll increase your fee by $5 million right now if you tell
me if you’ve ever slept with any contestant.”
Trump responded with a smile,
“We should just forget the bet.” The room cracked up.
The Miss Universe pageant in Moscow proved to be a great
success. Trump either did or didn’t sleep with several Russian hookers while he
was there.
Emin got his wish.
In November 2013 he released a nearly four-minute music video
of his song, In Another Life.
Lip-synching all the way, the handsome Russian spills coffee on his white
t-shirt. This affords him excuse to strip off the garment, dance across the
back of a living room sofa, and perform an exuberant handstand. All the while
he fantasizes about pageant contestants. The first appears in a mirror as he
brushes his teeth. Miss Russia plunks down on the bench as he plays the piano
and lip-synchs. She disappears, to be followed by a sultry Miss USAin a red-sequined dress. Poof and she’s gone.
Next, we have Miss Puerto Rico, Miss Switzerland, and Miss Poland. More
lip-synching, by all.
Eventually, the crooner looks under his bed, trying to figure
out where all the babes have gone. You lose track of all the beauties. Five
follow him down a flight of stairs. A dozen are scattered about an indoor pool.
A hefty older woman jumps into the pool, splashes Emin, and he wakes from a
dream.
I think the moral of the story is that Emin is trapped in a
nightmare, because Donald J. Trump appears at the head of a conference table,
demanding, “Wake him up right now! Emin, wake up. Come on. What’s wrong with
you? What’s wrong with you, Emin? Let’s get with it.”
The video ends when Trump fires Emin.
(I was hoping the last scene would show Trump turning into a
Mr. Potato Head-like version of himself.)
This
offer was “very high level and sensitive.”
So, what do we know? We know the future president and the
Russian tunesmith knew each other well. We know a meeting scheduled between
Trump and Putin during the time the pageant was in Moscow fell through after Putin
was delayed by a session with the King of Holland. When Trump decided to run
for president, Emin and his dad remembered how much fun they had had with the
orange-tinted tycoon.
Goldstone had high hopes too. He
remembers thinking, in early 2016, that if Trump won perhaps his client would
be invited to sing at the inauguration or visit the White House. Instead, on
the morning of June 3, Goldstone
fielded a call from the singer, asking him to use his contacts with the
Trump family.
Emin wanted to hook
up agents of the Russian government with leaders of the campaign.
Agalarov had met a “well connected” lawyer earlier that day; and that lawyer
had some serious dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Goldstone sat down and banged out an email to Don Jr. The
Russians, he said, had info that “would incriminate” Hillary. But Don Jr.
should beware. This offer was “very high level and sensitive.” The information
was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Today, Goldstone insists that he was puffing up his story a
little, bragging as it were, to get Don Jr.’s attention.
Jr. quickly responded, “If it’s what you say I love it.”
According to the Goldstone story in the Post, phone records provided to Congress show Jr. talked briefly
with Emin on June 6. Called before Congress to testify in front of a House
Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes, Don Jr. claimed he had no
memory of that call.
In fact, you had to wonder if someone slugged him upside the
head on or about June 10, because Jr. eventually forgot:
A)Having had the meeting with the Russians on June
9.
B)Who he talked to on the phone (at a blocked
number that might well have been his dad’s) before, during, and after the
meeting.
C) Who was at the meeting.
D) Why he, Jared Kushner, Paul
Manafort, and the Russians gathered at all.
Goldstone makes one particularly interesting point during his
interview. He notes that Don Jr. must have been impressed by what Emin said
over the phone. “My email didn’t get a meeting at Trump Tower,” he claimed. “My
email got a call.”
Unless Jr. or Jared or Paul can offer insight, Goldstone
adds, “we’ll never know why there was a meeting [emphasis added]” on
June 9, 2016.
