Day 577

Day 577 Sunday August 19, 20118 1,001 Days to Go

There are two issues to talk about today:

1 – Is there any reason to believe Trump has been compromised by the Russians? (Answer: No there are over 1300 reasons.)

2 – Where were we on September 10, 2001? Not physically, but as a nation, as a people. It seems like a quaint naive time, now, looking back.

Okay let’s look at number one: Has Trump been compromised by the Russians? Yes, 1300 times yes.

A new book by Craig Unger makes the case. It’s called, “House of Trump, House of Putin.” Unger is a journalist who decided to see what evidence there was for Russian collusion with Trump. What he found, via public sources, is startling. Much of it is old news. Things we’ve heard in bits and pieces, but Unger knits it together in a compelling narrative that connects the dots.
He makes two very compelling points:
Trump was four billion dollars in debt. No bank would loan him money. The Russian mob came to his rescue and bought real estate. One thousand three hundred times they bought real estate. Now, if you are Donald Trump, a man reputed to keep a close watch on everything that goes on in Trump Tower, and I would guess in the rest of his holdings to some degree, are you unaware that the people buying your crappy condos and whatnot are Russian? It strains credulity. He did say that he had no investments in Russia. That may be true, other than the Trump Tower Moscow deal that he was negotiating on or around the time he said he had no dealings there. The question that should have been asked was, “Did he have dealings with Russians?” Then the answer would have been over a thousand times yes.
Unger says that this started in 1984 when a Russian mobster came and bought several condos for six million in cash. It escalated from there. There’s a shadowy figure known as the boss of bosses of the Russian mob. He is reputed to be excellent at laundering money. Like many Russian operations there is always an element of plausible deniability. We’ve seen it time and again with Trump’s campaign staff, who were knowingly or unwittingly compromised by Russian agents.
While the buying of condos seemed to be the Russians favorite way of laundering money with Trump, let us not forget that Paul Manafort was running similar operations for the Ukrainian mob. Money came into Manafort’s account and a day or two later a piece of real estate was bought for the same price. Prosecutors familiar with money laundering say this is the classic scenario. It’s the walks and quacks like a duck kind of thing. Prosecutors say there is no other explanation that they know of to explain such actions. Let us also not forget that much of this money flowed through banks and off shore accounts connected to Cyprus, a well known Russian money laundering center, and one that Wilbur Ross, our Secretary of Commerce was intimately connected to, and probably still is.
There was a part of this that I didn’t understand until reading summaries of Unger’s book. Putin wanted to keep tab on what these oligarchs were doing with their money. He could do that indirectly via Bayrock, the real estate holding company through which many of the purchases were made. Why did Putin want this kind of information? It’s not clear to me at this point, but I suspect he probably wanted a piece of the action, like 50%, that’s his usual take.

The other point I wish to mention is what I saw in Baltimore yesterday. We are up here for a diabetes conference that Shelby is attending. Walking from the Convention Center back to our hotel I passed behind the World Trade Center ( btw There are 35 World Trade Center building in the U.S. This one is the five sided building by the harbor designed by I. M. Pei. ) On the side closest to the Pratt Street, which is the east west street nearest the building, there is a huge block of marble. Atop the block are two intertwined pieces of metal. As I approached, I knew what it was, part of the World Trade Center in New York that fell on September 11, 2001. Inscribed on the three sides of the block were the names of Marylanders that died that day; either in one of the two towers, or at the Pentagon, or on flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. The last side had the timeline of events that day.

It’s been almost seventeen years. I’ve been thinking a lot, not about that, but about “the greatest generation” the men and women who struggled and fought, and put their all into World War II. What was different about them? As I looked at the block and the metal I thought about how our world has changed since 9/11. Would the greatest generation have reacted to this tragedy the way we, and our politicians have? I don’t think so.
The biggest change that our country has gone through since World War II seems to be one of attitude and understanding. Our politicians don’t work for us anymore. They don’t solve problems. When we face obvious threats we turn away. Are we cowards, unable to face the truth, or are our politicians bought off and are many of them, and us, so lied to that we believe the lies?
After nine eleven Cheney convinced W to invade Iraq. This destabilized the Middle East. The rise of Al Queda was a direct result of W’s dad’s decision to house U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
We also went into Afghanistan. This is now the longest running war in U.S. history. Russia was there before us. They lost lots, but we’ve lost a lot more. Is there any end in sight? No.
Conflict broke out in Syria, aided by Russian meddling. Obama asked Congress for authority to act against Syria. What did Congress do? It went on vacation. When they got back they criticized the President for taking action that was clearly in our best interest.
Since 9/11 we’ve either not acted, or acted inappropriately in many instances. There have been bright spots. Obama took out Bin Laden. But by and large, we’ve acted stupidly. Now we have a petulant child, a Russian stooge, in the White House. If we get rid of him, we have a guy who thinks that what we need is more Christ in our lives and the health care crisis in our country will be solved.

There is a huge ground swell of local folks running for office that never thought they’d run, and it is encouraging. Maybe, we can throw the rascals out. Maybe, we can actually get back to solving problems, real problems. It looks like it will be a long slog. There is some light, way down the tunnel, whether it’s sunlight or an oncoming train is yet to be determined. We must persevere. As Churchill said – when you are in hell, keep going.

Fight on Garth!

1,001 Days to Go

PS The World Trade Center NYC beam at the World Trade Center – Baltimore.