It's even worse than it appears.
- The other day I wrote a piece about how I prefer blogging on the open web because if I have an Aha! idea, over here, I can implement it. If you click the wedge next to this item you can read the full text of that post, without leaving this post. #
- That's the feature I figured out. One of the nice things that Old School does is create a JSON file of every post on the site. You can derive its address from the permalink. It took all of today to get the new feature working. I could have waited 100 years and they would never have implemented it in Facebook. They don't listen to me. But I listen to me. 🎳 #
- I have ideas where this feature could go, but for right now it's really cool just to have the feature. Let's see if I use it. (No guarantees. I don't always use the features I implement.)#
- PS: The new feature is called xrefs.#
- Rachel Maddow said it best last night. She's no longer confused. Now she sees how the pieces fit together. Me too. #
Trump, pre-bankruptcies, financed his ventures the old-fashioned way, with bank loans. Then he defaulted, returned pennies on the dollar, and could no longer raise legit capital.#- At the same time, Putin and his cronies were ascending in Russia, and needed places to park their gains outside Russia. People like Trump were perfect. And they didn't have to worry about him defaulting because they had good enforcers that weren't available to legal banks.#
- It's a win-win. Trump is the perfect front for money-laundering. A loudmouth self-promoting con-man. Decides to run for president. His mob friends suggest Paul Manafort would make a good campaign manager. Trump doesn't like to micro-manage, so he says sure, why not.#
- Now it's time for the next-level management program for Trump. He has graduated from one of many western money-launderers to the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. The Russians had hacked the systems of both parties, now they knew what they would use the mail archives for. For the Democrats, they'd release the emails when they needed to change the focus away from some Trump misdeed, and for the Repubs they'd use the emails to keep them from "getting any ideas" about who was in charge. #
They contact Junior through Goldstone. He says Russia loves your dad, wants to see him elected, can we meet to discuss? Junior loves it. They get together. Seal the deal. The Russian rep doesn't talk much, asks what Junior and Kushner want. Manafort is sitting on both sides of the table (possibly unbeknownst to Junior and Kushner) but mostly on the Russian side, of course. BTW, you can be sure the Russians have a recording of what was said at this meeting. #- Follow-up meetings take place. They introduce people in both organizations to each other. There are lots of connections at all levels through the campaign. The tracks are not well covered. And of course Russians have copies of all the emails (as they had copies of the ones that just leaked). When Flynn was fired because he could be blackmailed that must have been a good laugh for Trump et al, because that was the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. #
- Anyway, this seems to be "the arc" of the relationship between Trump and Russia. Both countries are now controlled by the mob. They don't care if we know. It's all pretty much out in the open and all that the Russians care about is that their money-laundering flows are turned back on. They don't care about the other things we thought they might care about. The US can do whatever they want. They just want to be able to continue to use American real estate as their piggybank.#
- PS: Looking forward, either the Russians get their way and can start laundering again, or they're going to make our lives ever-more-hellish.#