Op-ed: In the years I spent in Africa working for Associated Press I knew at least two of the most vicious leaders I traveled with had a Washington lobbyist.
That man, who worked for Zairean dictator Mose Sese Seko and Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi, turned out to be Paul Manafort. I was stunned to find this same man is now working for Donald Trump. “The list of questionable characters, shady lawsuits, and international scandals he has been involved in would require at minimum a few day’s worth of non-stop reading, and we here at Paste Magazine realize that our readers have actual lives outside of the internet. What’s really amazing is that all of this information is readily available online if one only makes the arduous effort to enter “Paul Manafort” into a Google search. This is a man whose firm was prominently featured in the report “The Torturer’s Lobby,” by the Center for Public Integrity, and whose name appears no fewer than forty times in the investigation. This is a man who is quoted in a federal hearing as arguing, “You might call it influence-peddling. I call it lobbying,” while attempting to defend himself during a federal investigation into a $43 million scam involving the Department of Housing and Urban Development,” Paste reported. Manafort is not being paid, MSNBC says. Paste Manafort also worked for Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. As a young Republican he had worked for Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. But the latest news getting attention makes all this seem petty. The New York Times has reported that it is possible Manafort got $12.7 billion while working for ousted Ukrainian dictator Victor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia where he is sheltered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin, Manafort and Trump have what some call a love affair because the Russian hates Hillary Clinton. New York Times The Ukrainian government that replaced Yanukovych, and found his burned and scorched data files in a swimming pool, says it is still investigating. “A spokeswoman for the anti-corruption bureau, Darya Manzhura, said Monday that payments to Manafort were listed in a ledger recovered from the headquarters of Yanukovych’s political party, the Party of Regions. Investigators did not specify the reason the money was designated for Manafort from 2007 to 2012,” the Washington Post was told. “The anti-corruption bureau cannot make indictments but must pass on any evidence to prosecutors, who can decide whether to file charges. Manzhura said that processing the list will take a long time, as will matching signatures to individuals and proving that money actually changed hands,” she said. Manafort is not the priority, so he may get a pass. For investigators, she said, Manafort is not the priority. Paste said: “Even more shocking is Manafort has been the subject of almost no scrutiny from the mainstream US media. On the contrary, his hiring was seen as a victory for Trump, that a man so successful and embedded in the GOP establishment would be willing to work for an “outsider” such as Trump. In reality, it shouldn’t be the least bit surprising that a man known for his willingness to work with anyone, no matter how brutal and corrupt, would decide to work for Donald Trump, known for his failure to pay bills, his praise of questionable world leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin, and general fascist tendencies such as banning numerous journalists from events and certain religions from our nation. With the recent DNC hack being linked to Russia, and with Russia becoming increasingly more aggressive towards US positions in Syria, this is a man whose Russian ties should at a minimum raise a few alarm flags. “Ultimately the real concerning issue is that no one seems to know, or even worse, care, just exactly what Paul Manafort’s end game is.” Vice President Joe Biden today said on national television that Trump “would have loved Stalin. http://uk.complex.com/life/2016/08/manafort-dictatorships
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Op-ed: The story of Trump University has been widely told but it is only the tip of the iceberg where Donald Trump’s links to crime are concerned.
In “The Making of Donald Trump,” Pulitzer Prize winner Cay Johnston writes that the Donald “mobbed up” with gangster unions and companies to build his towers with ready-mix concrete instead of steel girders. The best providers had criminal records, and could guarantee the concrete would be delivered even during strikes. Several of the men he did business with were convicted of federal crimes, John Cody was one of them. When Trump decided to get into the newly legalized casino industry in New Jersey he should have been blocked. No one who has been investigated by law enforcement should be granted a casino license. Trump got licenses in record time. Always on the prowl for some new enterprise, Trump and some colleagues went overboard and created a new professional football league, USFL, which would play in the spring. It lasted only from 1983 to 1985. Plans for an 1986 season fell through. Trump and his counterparts thought a lawsuit would make them competitive. Earlier attempts had failed though one, the American Football League merged with the NFL. The NFL had been around since 1920 with teams in virtually every major city, and in some cities more than one franchise. Television revenue made the NFL a fortress. The USFL thought it could do the same. The USFL filed an antitrust lawsuit against the older league, claiming it had established a monopoly with respect to television broadcasting rights, and in some cases, to access of stadium venues, Wikipedia reported. “The case went to trial in the spring of 1986 and lasted 42 days. On July 29, a six-person jury handed down a verdict that devastated the USFL, even though it technically won its case. The jury declared the NFL a ‘duly adjudicated illegal monopoly’, and found that the NFL had willfully acquired and maintained monopoly status in professional football through predatory tactics. “However, it rejected the USFL's other claims. The jury found that the USFL had changed its strategy to a more risky goal of forcing a merger with the NFL. Furthermore, the switch to a fall schedule caused the loss of several major markets (Philadelphia, Denver, Houston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Miami, the Bay Area). “Most importantly, the jury found that the NFL did not attempt to force the USFL off television. (Indeed, ESPN remained willing to carry USFL games in the fall, several of the league's teams also had local broadcast contracts, and 1986 also happened to be the inaugural season of the Fox Broadcasting Company, a network that would eventually become the fourth major broadcast network.) In essence, the jury felt that while the USFL was harmed by the NFL's de facto monopolization of pro football in the United States, most of its problems were due to its own mismanagement. “It awarded the USFL nominal damages of one dollar, which was tripled under antitrust law to three dollars. It later emerged that the jury incorrectly assumed that the judge could increase the award.” Trump was a major player in this fiasco. Trump Destroys League http://bit.ly/2boAQHy OpEd: As a long-time writer and editor it is is hard to imagine what story could knock one with a quotation about “titties” from the top of American newspapers. Especially when the statement was made by the Republican candidate for president. But then that Republican candidate goes a step further. At a rally in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday, Trump warned that it would be “a horrible day” if Clinton were elected and got to appoint a tiebreaking Supreme Court justice. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump said, as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know,” the New York Times reported. [The right to keep and bear arms in the United States is a fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, and by the constitutions of most U.S. states. The Second Amendment declares: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.] The nation has suffered numerous gun slayings, even massacres, and in some cases authorities had warnings the killings were planned. Trump has been under pressure to calm his rhetoric and read from a script on a teleprompter. Instead his comments made another big splash, though this time hilarious not violent. Though it is not clear Trump knows who Sigmond Freud is, he qualified with a “major league” one even while using a teleprompter. Some critics complain Trump can’t even pronounce big league. But there was no doubt his speech in Detroit on Monday included one of those slips. Promoting his economic plan, Trump said: "Our lower business tax will also end job-killing corporate inversions and cause trillions in new dollars to come pouring into our country," he said. "And, by the way, into titties like right here in Detroit,” he said in a speech telecast around the nation. So far no tweets declaring he was misheard. Perhaps it was supposed to refer to “cities.” Wikipedia says of a Freudian slip: “A Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of an unconscious subdued wish or internal train of thought. The concept is part of classical psychoanalysis. “The Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who, in his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, described and analyzed a large number of seemingly trivial, bizarre, or nonsensical errors and slips, most notably the Signorelli parapraxis. “As in the study of dreams, Freud submits his discussion with the intention of demonstrating the existence of unconscious mental processes in the healthy…” It could not have come at a worse time for Trump, whose profane language has angered many evangelicals, and even led to a prominent Mormon to declare himself as a presidential candidate this late in the race. Trump is not in trouble just for his language, but also for things said by his supporters at rallies. “Until last week, when the New York Times ran an uncensored video compilation of Trump supporters at his rallies, I didn’t understand how horrifying his crowds are. That’s because the Times, like almost all TV news, bleeps profanity and hate speech; because the Trump campaign traps cameras and correspondents in a press pen, preventing them from covering the crowd; and because, until three Times reporters — Erica Berenstein, Nick Corasaniti and Ashley Parker — pointed it out, I didn’t realize what enablers the courteous people at his rallies turn out to be,” Marty Kaplan of the Huffington Post reported. Calling opponent Hillary Clinton a witch and a devil may also be hurting with evangelicals, his original base. They do not think these are joking matters. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37029170 Op-ed: Republican leaders have been pressing Donald Trump to calm his rhetoric and read from a script on a teleprompter. Though it is not clear Trump knows who Sigmond Freud is, he qualified with a “major league” one even while using a teleprompter. Some critics complain Trump can’t even pronounce big league. But there was no doubt his speech in Detroit on Monday included one of those slips. Promoting his economic plan, Trump said: "Our lower business tax will also end job-killing corporate inversions and cause trillions in new dollars to come pouring into our country," he said. "And, by the way, into titties like right here in Detroit,” he said in a speech telecast around the nation. So far no tweets declaring he was misheard. Perhaps it was supposed to refer to “cities.” Wikipedia says of a Freudian slip: “A Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of an unconscious subdued wish or internal train of thought. The concept is part of classical psychoanalysis. Wikipedia says: “The Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who, in his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, described and analyzed a large number of seemingly trivial, bizarre, or nonsensical errors and slips, most notably the Signorelli parapraxis. “As in the study of dreams, Freud submits his discussion with the intention of demonstrating the existence of unconscious mental processes in the healthy…” It could not have come at a worse time for Trump, whose profane language has angered many evangelicals, and even led a prominent Mormon to declare himself as a presidential candidate this late in the race. Trump is not in trouble just for his language, but also for things said by his supporters at rallies. “Until last week, when the New York Times ran an uncensored video compilation of Trump supporters at his rallies, I didn’t understand how horrifying his crowds are. That’s because the Times, like almost all TV news, bleeps profanity and hate speech; because the Trump campaign traps cameras and correspondents in a press pen, preventing them from covering the crowd; and because, until three Times reporters — Erica Berenstein, Nick Corasaniti and Ashley Parker — pointed it out, I didn’t realize what enablers the courteous people at his rallies turn out to be,” Marty Kaplan of the Huffington Post reported. Calling opponent Hillary Clinton a witch and a devil may also be hurting with evangelicals, his original base. They do not think these are joking matters. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-letter-national-security-officials_us_57a9d201e4b0b770b1a43baf http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/08/did-donald-trump-just-say-titties-on-live-tv.html Op-ed: Want to know who killed Jimmy Hoffa?
Ask Donald Trump. He claims he knows. A new book, just out in the past month, gives the details of how Trump built his empire. “The Making of Donald Trump,” by Pulitzer prize winner David Cay Johnston. But much of this information has been out there for decades. Deals Trump cut to get concrete when crooked union bosses had started strikes that denied the building material to other contractors. “The breadth of Trump’s controversies is truly huge, ranging from allegations of mafia ties to unscrupulous business dealings, and from racial discrimination to alleged marital rape. They stretch over more than four decades, from the mid-1970s to the present day. “To catalogue the full sweep of allegations would require thousands of words and lump together the trivial with the truly scandalous. Including business deals that have simply failed, without any hint of impropriety, would require thousands more,” writes Atlantic. He has settled thousands of lawsuits, despite claiming he never lost. His buddy was the late Roy Cohn, who had been Sen. Joe McCarthy’s consigliere when the Red Scare was on. Before he died of AIDS, Cohn had been disbarred. “Decades later, Mr. Cohn’s influence on Mr. Trump is unmistakable. Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball of a presidential bid — the gleeful smearing of his opponents, the embracing of bluster as brand — has been a Roy Cohn number on a grand scale. Mr. Trump’s response to the Orlando massacre, with his ominous warnings of a terrorist attack that could wipe out the country and his conspiratorial suggestions of a Muslim fifth column in the United States, seemed to have been ripped straight out of the Cohn playbook. “I hear Roy in the things he says quite clearly,” said Peter Fraser, who as Mr. Cohn’s lover for the last two years of his life spent a great deal of time with Mr. Trump. “That bravado, and if you say it aggressively and loudly enough, it’s the truth — that’s the way Roy used to operate to a degree, and Donald was certainly his apprentice,” the New York Times reports. Compare that to what Hillary did with her emails, according to her predecessor, and two before them. “What I did when I entered the State Department, I found an antiquated system that had to be modernized and modernized quickly. “So we put in place new systems, bought 44,000 computers and put a new Internet capable computer on every single desk in every embassy, every office in the State Department. And then I connected it with software. “But in order to change the culture, to change the brainware, as I call it, I started using it in order to get everybody to use it, so we could be a 21st century institution and not a 19th century,” Powell told PoliticusUSA. Government and private industry were caught with their pants down when the Internet explosion occurred. Millions of workers found themselves using equipment that was slow and often crashed. The best equipment bar far was from private companies like Apple, but Microsoft, not even graphic, had captured the market and held it for years. Op-ed: Many of the controversial events in Donald Trump’s life occurred previously in previous generations of what was once the Drumpf family. In no particular order, the question of draft-dodging. To avoid military service, a grandparent immigrated to the U.S., made a fair amount of money and returned to his native Kallstatd. According to the newly released book, “The Making of Donald Trump” by Pulitzer Prize winning writer David Cay Johnston, local officials were not impressed by his fortune and told him to leave. He returned to the U.S. Johnston has followed Trump’s career for decades. The Making of Donald Trump It has been widely reported that Trump himself avoided the draft, even after college, because he had bone spurs. It is a minor problem that often does not require treatment. It didn’t stop Trump from being an athlete in college. Later, he claimed he escaped Vietnam because he had a high draft lottery number. As to the claim that his wife, Melania, entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 1995 and worked as a model, there also is a precedent. Greatgrandfather Friedrich Trump lied about his age and claimed he had arrived in America two years before he had to qualify to become a citizen, according to Johnson. Then there are claims he has support of white supremacists such as the Ku Klux Klan. Its leaders have endorsed him. “Boing Boing dug up an old New York Times article from May of 1927 that listed a Fred Trump among those arrested at a Klan rally in Jamaica, Queens, when "1,000 Klansmen and 100 policemen staged a free-for-all," in the streets. Donald Trump's father would have been 21 in 1927 and had spent most of his life in Queens,” Vice reported. The book reports Trump had been investigated on many occasions, and managed to escape going to jail. He also was associated with crime families, and found to have denied apartmental rentals to blacks. The Hillary Clinton campaign must be feeling a grand case of schadenfreude as it watches its polls rise and Trump's plummet. http://www.vice.com/read/all-the-evidence-we-could-find-about-fred-trumps-alleged-involvement-with-the-kkk https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Donald-Trump-David-Johnston/dp/1612196322/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470501639&sr=1-1&keywords=the+making+of+donald+trump Op-ed: The beautiful landscape of Rio de Janerio would seem to make it the ideal venue for the Olympics. But as they begin the country is troubled with crime, poverty, potential terrorism and a lack of money to hold games that have left richer countries with debt that took years to cover. There is even fear it could be a target of ISIS. Sixty-three percent of the population of 204 million oppose the games. My home state of Colorado voted down the Winter Olympics and has become one of the richest states in the nation with far the best skiing and winter sports. “Rioters pelted the Olympic torch relay with rocks as it approached Rio de Janeiro, while bumper stickers have rearranged the Olympic rings into a four-letter word. The country is in the middle of a political battle over whether its government should be replaced." “Then there’s the anxiety: With gallows humor amid a crime wave and fears of terrorism, a bingo game is circulating for people to wager on which day during the Games an attack will occur,” the New York Times reported. The decision to allow a team from Russia to compete despite its being caught using government-supplied drugs adds no glamor. A writer for the Washington Post urged legalizing all drugs, comparing it to people smoke weed in Colorado. She wrote: “It’s time to junk the World Anti-Doping Agency and throw it into the same bin with Prohibition. It’s a failed social experiment that has yielded nothing but a larger form of corruption, a crooked self-dealing bureaucracy headed by a bunch of careerist drones trying to legislate a morality they themselves do not possess.” What she didn’t mention was that giving athletes drugs and then sending them to compete is dangerous. Remember the scene in MASH when the two Army surgical teams are playing a sandlot football game. One team realizes it is losing so it sticks a syringe into the other team’s best player and he is out for the night. True Sport has a list of what these drugs can do: “Doping has many short-term and long-term risks. Here are a few of the many serious consequences an athlete may experience. Possible health effects include: Liver disease Cardiovascular disease High blood pressure Increased or flared acne on the body Sexual side effects Weakening of the immune system Seizures Nausea Tremors Increased risk of stroke Heart attack Cardiac arrhythmia.” But considered in a Roman gladiator way this could exciting. Don’t people go to Formula Racing hoping to see drivers crash and die? The question of honor doesn’t arise. Russia already took care of that. Caught in the act Moscow and Putin were still allowed to send two-thirds of their team to Rio. Their widespread doping has been known since the Cold War but Putin, friend of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, had the guns to drills holes in wall so phony specimens could be swapped for real ones. Most professional and amateur sports are tarnished by the need for greed. Hopefully if drugs are allowed on the tracks and other sites they will have doctors on hand to try to save some lives. Great film though, news at 11. |
Robert Weller
2016 US election news and other news from the USA
Bio
Worked in journalism, including on the Internet, for more than 40 years. Started as a news editor at the Colorado Daily at the University of Colorado, joined a small Montana newspaper, the Helena Independent-Record, and then United Press International. Archives
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