https://time.com/5651345/rusal-investment-braidy-kentucky/

Dmitry Firtash luvs Moscow Mitch and Trumputin, too.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/17/lev-parnas-recieved-1m-from-embattled-ukrainian-oligarch-dmitry-firtash/

Rupert had just bought the Chicago Sun-Times In 1984. Royko knew what monstrosities Murdoch visited upon the papers in almost all of Australia and later the U.K. and quit his job as a columnist. Royko made plain the newly citizen Murdoch’s threat to American democracy — truth and trust.

Who believes he is a Prince

He acts like he has no idea he’s in Putin’s pocket.

It’s an act. Trump knows.

Lucian K. Truscott observed:

All this is just more willful ignorance contained within his usual fog of lies. But it was his description of the grief of families meeting the bodies of their dead at Dover Air Force Base that was most illustrative of his abject disdain for human life. “They scream, like I’ve never seen anything before. They’ll break through military barriers. They’ll run to the coffin and jump on top of the coffin. Crying mothers and wives. Crying desperately.”

https://www.salon.com/2019/10/19/america-is-being-held-hostage-by-a-bloody-madman-and-hes-in-the-white-house/

...shows who he works for:



As opposed to how he looks at Angela Merkel:



Great letter, UTUSN. You are absolutely correct: Trump is not America.

Michela Tindera
Forbes, Dec. 12, 2019

Presidential candidate Michael Bennet hasn’t gained much traction in the polls, but America’s richest people sure seem to like him. Forbes found that 32 billionaires and their spouses have donated to the Colorado senator’s presidential campaign, meaning Bennet has more billionaire backers than all but three Democratic candidates still in the race.

The supporters include Walmart heiress Christy Walton, former energy trader John Arnold and private equity titan David Bonderman. Jim Simons, a mathematician who got rich through hedge funds, donated $5,600, the most anyone can legally give to a campaign directly. Simons’ wife Marilyn did the same. Altogether, Forbes found 20 billionaires and 12 spouses who have contributed since Bennet launched his campaign in May.

Most of them are hedging their bets, giving to multiple candidates while Bennet’s poll numbers remain in the cellar. Both Jim and Marilyn Simons donated to Joe Biden and Jay Inslee. Forbes found just five members of the ultra-rich who gave exclusively to Bennet—John Arnold and his wife Laura, Apollo Global Management cofounder Marc Rowan and his wife Carolyn, plus fellow Coloradan Cantey Ergen, the wife of Dish Network founder Charles Ergen. Most of his donors also made their contributions in May and June, soon after Bennet launched his campaign.

Continues...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2019/12/12/here-are-the-billionaires-backing-michael-bennets-presidential-campaign/amp/

PS: I like Michael Bennet, too. Going by how he let Ted Cruz have it on the Senate floor, I think he’d hold Putin and the rest of the GOP to account.

Like a Drumpf.

A new book from a former cult member makes the case.

By Sean Illing
Vox.com, Dec 13, 2019

Excerpt...

A new book by cult expert Steven Hassan, called The Cult of Trump, is the first serious attempt to argue that Trumpism is a cult. Hassan has studied cults for years and is himself a former member of the “Moonies” cult, an offshoot of the Unification Church of the United States led by Sun Myung Moon that made headlines in 1970s.

Hassan is convinced that Trump is more than just a manipulative, charismatic politician. The president, he writes, “employs many of the same techniques as prominent cult leaders and displays many of the same personality traits.”

Snip...

Steven Hassan: I began this book with the assumption that Trump is a malignant narcissist. Actually, watching him and listening to him reminded me of Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the cult I joined in college, in that both have a kind of God complex where they’re the only one with the answers, the only one who can fix things. Moon was going to create a theocracy and Trump was going to “drain the swamp.” But the way they carry themselves is similar.

But what really made me think of Trump as a cult was the way the groups who supported him were behaving, especially religious groups who believed that God had chosen Trump or was using Trump. There are actual pro-Trump religious groups, like the New Apostolic Reformation, whose leaders were saying, “We’re of God. The rest of the world is of Satan, and we need to follow our chosen leaders who are connected to God.”

There was this blind-faith aspect to the whole thing and an unwillingness to look at any inconvenient facts. That’s all very cult-like.

Continues...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/13/20992370/trump-republican-party-cult-steven-hassan

Nice reading for a Friday the 13th In Putin’s America.

He and his co-conspirators did the same Deregulation Voodoo to the banks.

In both cases “They” got the money and the taxpayers got the bill.

From DU in 2008:

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4055207

ETA: were we’re weird