Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Manafort wasn't just an unfortunate choice. He was the canary in the coal mine.

Trump put in a great performance. Every "Shucks, I got it wrong," wasn't a reflection of a flaw in judgement, so much as the next act.

August 21, 2016
By Kevin D. Williamson

...Trump has just fired his campaign manager, (click here) Paul Manafort, who, if recently unearthed documents are to be believed, is in the pocket of pro-Moscow oligarchs in Ukraine. Reports the New York Times: “Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from [former president Viktor] Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau.” Desks rose a few inches in the oubliettes of the Internal Revenue Service at that news, surely.

There is also a criminal investigation under way regarding an $18 million sale of Ukrainian cable-television operations to “a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.”...

Those Americans that backed him from The Apprentice to the White House didn't count on Russia. If they did then they knew more than anyone else and we all need to be reading more tabloids.

See, Trump was hurt by what he considered a dear friend. Now, his vital campaign manager would turn out to be a traitor and what was poor, injured Trump going to do?

That is the persona the USA saw, but, it wasn't the truth and today it is an astounding set of values Americans are witnessing in the White House; the selling out of the USA and it's military prowess to protect allies and defeat foes.

Facilitated by greed, Khruschev has won. Russia is no different than al Qaeda; it is using the political infrastructures, rather than tall buildings, of The West to defeat democracy.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (click here)
Holding: Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast.

JudgmentReversed, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy on January 21, 2010. in a 5-4 decision with an opinion written by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor.
Putin is promising openly he will escalate the number of nuclear weapons owned by Russia. He is destroying treaties. He is an impatient man.