I have no idea whether there will be a ‘smoking gun’ connecting Il Trumpe to Russian hacking. Besides, he openly asked Russia to meddle in the campaign. The real ‘secret’ is that Trump has a lot of really shady business associates–and that’s putting it gently.
An aside: in light of his sleazy partners, his casino going under looks like a class bust-out. The only question is was he in on it, or was he the schnook? But I digress.
One thing I hope U.S.-ians take away from Il Trumpe’s administration, both the president and many of his cabinet officials, is that many rich people made their money in really sleazy, shitty ways (e.g., Mnuchin). I don’t mean the occasional underhanded deal, or questioning what overall societal good they provide (e.g., the Kardashians), I mean that their entire modus operandi is usually pretty foul.
We usually assume ‘sucessful businessmen’ are reasonably honest. That’s probably correct for many gentry class and wealthy people. But unless they inherited their immense wealth, the rich are different than you and me: there’s usually a shit ton of sleaze under all that lucre.
Hopefully, we’ll learn this from Trump.
mikethemadbiologist
I still totally doubt that the Russian government had anything to do with Trump winning the election. In simple terms it just does not make a lot of sense.
All the accusations and innuendo and down-right hysteria seem due to a) a bunch of irresponsible Democrats throwing wild accusations about because they cannot believe they lost; b) a general tendency for Americans to believe in plots and conspiracies (see the Jesuit plot of the 1850’s) or the warmongering leading up to the Spanish-American War or, come to think of it to the Iraqi invasion.
On the other hand I have no problem at all, suspecting that a serious investigation might show all sorts of dubious and quite possibly illegal deals with Russian and ‘Stan politicians and oligarchs. What is a better way to legally or illegally launder money into Western nations than real estate?
I agree with jrkrideau; the Russians may not be the biggest culprit in the failure of the electoral system. Maybe Comey’s yapping about Clinton’s emails, or rust belt voter suppression may have been bigger factors.
The Russian probe, however, may turn up much blacker dirt than the Wikileaks. Suppose, as has been speculated, they paid off the Orange Imbecile to grease the way to easing sanctions against Putin’s invasion of Crimea.
That could unleash ugly and highly undesirable consequences, such as Artic oil drilling.
jrkrideau’s completely correct, and this site does its reputation no favors by relaying the Trump/Russia rumor du jour. This whole horseshit spasm has always been an exercise in Dem blame-shifting. The longer they cling to it, the longer they will continue to get played by a carnival act like Trump, and meanwhile the whole rest of the world will suffer.
On the other hand I have no problem at all, suspecting that a serious investigation might show all sorts of dubious and quite possibly illegal deals with Russian and ‘Stan politicians and oligarchs. What is a better way to legally or illegally launder money into Western nations than real estate?
A truly serious investigation will show one of the Beltway’s worst-kept secrets: There’s an entire, very lucrative segment of the local economy happy to take money from **any** foreign government, in order to “represent” that government’s wishes with (the buyers hope) influential parties in the American government. Courtiers aligned with Democrats (e.g., the entire Podesta family, apparently) chase the dollars/euros/shekels/rubles/pounds just as avidly as their Republican-leaning counterparts. They’re all quite ready to adjust their “scruples” as necessary.