The Atlantic: the Plot Against America

[triron]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/paul-manafort-american-hustler/550925/?utm_source=twb

Expose' on Paul Manafort

[mr_lebowski]

1. Very long but extremely informative ... that dude is The Family, to the bone ...

Unfortunately it indirectly implies that busting Trump on actual PERSONAL conspiracy with Russia might be a tough row to hoe ... there's a very good chance that everything that WAS done in that regard was done by those around him and he possibly knew little (or perhaps even nothing) about it ...

However, would the GOPpers have let Hillary off if she'd hired a Paul Manafort to run her campaign and HE conspired with Russia to help his candidate win, claiming that she knew nothing of it (but just so happened to win in the end)?

F*** NO!

They'd say "So what, even if it WERE true she didn't know (HA HA!) it doesn't matter, she's responsible for who she hired as Campaign Manager, and the election is now tainted, therefore she needs to be removed!"

To actually 'get' Trump on conspiracy we need to prove that either HE had direct knowledge, or someone VERY close to him like Jared or one of his kids.

[triron]

2. I will say flat out 'he knew'.

[lindysalsagal]

3. Loyalty. That's how gangsters work. He. Knew. Everything.

And mueller's got proof: follow the money. He owns these private "businesses." He has very, very few henchmen: that's why his kids heel: he's running the cons. Everything is for and about him.

There's no wriggling out: that's why he fired mueller and will try again: Mueller's got the mobster dead to rights.

[smirkymonkey]

4. No collusion, no collusion, no collusion!

[grantcart]

5. very good article

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. It's a cold war

The mid-terms will be just one battle in a war that has become the rule of law and evidence versus the rule of money and propaganda. A poll out today shows 72% of Dems trust the FBI and 26% of Reps do so.

Add in this from the article in The Atlantic:

Before everything exploded in Ukraine, Manafort saw the country as his golden land, the greatest of his opportunities. But his role as adviser, as powerful as it was, never quite matched his own buccaneering sense of self. After spending so much time in the company of Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, he set out to become an oligarch himself. Rick Davis declared their firm to be mostly “in the deal business,” according to James Harding’s 2008 book, Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin Into a Global Business. “The thing I love,” Davis said, “is that the political elites and the economic elites in every other country but the United States of America are the same.” The elected officials and the people “running the elections are the richest people in the country, who own all the assets.”

(Bold added).

Apparently, the Republicans and Fox consider this Russia investigation to be an existential threat -- they're attacking the Justice Department full force.