We know the story … we know it …
The KGB looked for people to influence, people of influence to recruit … greedy, amoral, and otherwise flawed people … and Donald Trump fell into their laps easily 30 years ago.
Trump’s shady business dealings made him persona non grata to sensible bankers working within legal and ethical constraints (which is saying something considering the financial world) and, cut off, his saviors: now Russian intelligence.
Trump’s real estate around the world is populated, massively, by shell corporations often flipping properties. Trump’s properties in the United States have a disproportionate percentage of both shell property and Russian owners.
Trump has an incredibly cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin, echoing the Russian dictator’s talking points and obsequious praise for the totalitarian Putin.
We know this … many of us knew this well before 2016 … yet ..
It is incredibly powerful to have it all laid out, as a deck of cards, item after item after item … expert after expert …
Just release this past Friday, Active Measures is — as the LA Times put it:
A crash course in accepting that the 2016 election results were the rusult of the greatest espionage operation in world history.
We knew this … we know this … yet it is still painfully and powerfully revealing to watch and try to absorb Active Measures. One sitting likely will not be enough.
And, while I and we knew, there is no question in my mind that all but the most specialized will learn and have revelatory moments. One early one comes related to Senator Scoop Jackson’s work to help Refuseniks (Soviet Jews) leave the Soviet Union. The USSR used the deal to empty prison cells of Mafia criminals and thus the Brighton Beach Russian Mafia center was ‘born’ along with a long-term Soviet/Russian intelligence role with those criminals as informal agents in the United States. (Making me think, sigh, ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’) And, well, there are many Brighton Beach contacts to Don.
And, watching this sparks some simple questions:
- How much of this was not available to reporters and to media outlets, if they had dug just a bit, well before the November 2016 election?
- What if the United States had not whitewashed “white collar crime” and actually prosecuted more serious financial and other crimes?
- Why was real estate exempted from so many money laundering rules and isn’t it decades past the time where any such exemption(s) should end?
- How much were you, I, we impacted directly and indirectly in our thinking and actions by the Russian intelligence operations colluding with treasonous Americans (whether certain cable operators or web sites or political campaigns)?
It is time for me to go back and start rewatching Active Measures which is running on Hulu along with being available by other means.
First though, I will need to uprate Active Measures on imbd since Russian trolls have been actively downgrading it since its release …
And, as with this post, I will try to figure out how to encourage others to make this one of the most watched documentaries in U.S. history. Maybe, just maybe, the substance of this will help convince some of our fellow citizens of the substantial background of Trump’s Russian connection and that this really isn’t ‘solely’ about a single meeting or somehow an incidental ‘co-mingling’ of interests, but that Donald Trump is almost certainly an active tool of Vladimir Putin — and has been for many decades.
BREAK
Now, for something (almost) totally different, a post from earlier today that might be of interest/worthy of sharing: (Virginia's) GOP: Party of Crime and Slime. Take a look. Would welcome thoughts, reactions … and, if you find worthy, shares.
Tuesday, Sep 4, 2018 · 12:39:56 PM +00:00
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A Siegel
TO make quite explicit, this is a documentary — with the strengths and weaknesses of the format. While the Extreme Measures team “cover a lot in the movie”, let’s make quite clear: there are tremendous amounts of items/issues gapped/glossed over/etc due to, certainly, time constraints, desire to keep clarity for viewers, etc, etc, etc …
For example, closer to my domain, there is nothing about the Russian link to “ClimateGate” (the 2009 theft of climate scientists’ emails and use of them to undermine public confidence in the science/scientists to undermine climate action) and not enough on the quite real potential that almost certainly a major part of the motivating reason for Putin supporting Trump/GOP was OIL, OIL, OIL and the undercutting of climate action globally.