Russia Occupies the White House...How We Got Here...What Comes Next?

From the excellent John Nichols at the Nation we have an article explaining how the Manafort/Gates indictments and the Papadopoulos guilty plea cast a shadow over Trump but also over Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence was the man charged with supervising the assembling of the personnel that filled the Trump administration. Pence was and is the Extreme Vetter In Chief, but of course no vetting took place at all. Everyone came through on the nod, like people entering a speakeasy: “Joe sent me.” So we may get rid of a criminal and traitor president and find he is replaced by a President Doofus, a bland, pious, doltish Sgt. Schultz figure who "knows nothing and hears nahhhh-thing.” (Has Pence been bribed with strudel?) Pence may play stupid to save himself, but he has continued a relationship with Manafort beyond the campaign after Manafort left under a cloud. There is now discussion of Pence and the cabinet using the 25th amendment to oust the president. The remaining conspirators would be joined in a serious pact of inter loyalties not resembling any democratic norm we know of. Loyalty is something Trump discusses with people he hires. It isn’t loyalty to the Constitution.

We know that when Trump tweets it is often in the words he just heard on Fox N Friends… but he also follows a narrative set down by Russian bots which are directed by the people in the Kremlin we suspect might be his Russian masters… He acts like a dog on a leash following the order to attack whatever his master tells him to attack. When he lashes out at Clinton and Mueller, how closely do his words echo the words of his master, Putin? Is he even aware of this?

From Newsweek: Russian bots operating Trump's mouth

“I hire the best people!” ~Donald J. Trump

Trump rails about “extreme vetting” for people wishing to enter this country, but he followed no vetting procedures when it came to hiring personnel for the White House or the various critical cabinet posts or appointing people to judicial seats. No vetting, no problem. No resume, no problem. No expertise, that was an actual plus in Trump’s mind.

Sometimes idiocy is a positive asset in a Trump hire. Take Rick Perry. The Hill reports the Sec of Energy recently stated that fossil fuels are vital to prevent sexual assault… I’ll let that sink in for a minute. (We also have a head of EPA who believes his job is to protect the fossil fuel industry from environmentalists.)

A year ago, when Trump hired Manafort, an article appeared in Bloomberg summarizing Manafort’s sleazy and criminal associations. In some quarters he was called the Torture Lobbyist because he specialized in advancing the interests of brutal dictators in Washington. (This may explain why his daughter once characterized her father’s income as “blood money.”)

Here is the Atlantic’s retrospective analysis of the Manafort hiring

The campaign acquired George Papadopoulos on the fly, because no known or accredited foreign policy people would have anything to do with Trump. When asked by a reporter who his foreign policy people were Trump immediately mentioned George Papadopoulos as one, “smart guy,” and also cited Carter Page, who was also already under scrutiny by the FBI for shady associations with Russian spy figures. Extreme vetting? Nothing like that happened in the Trump entourage. Flattery was enough to get in the door. To get into the country Trump demands extreme vetting, but to get access to the highest levels of national security operations all you needed to do was flatter Donald Trump. And be capable of lying big, because that is Trump’s style.

The Daily Beast on the rise of Papadopoulos

Here’s a useful roadmap of Russia-White House connections:from the NYTimes

A handy FYI and FAQ also from the NYTimes

Fear is rippling through the White House staff, which may result in pleas being copped and stories being told to Mueller’s investigators.

Reported by Vanity Fair

The Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross, interestingly enough, co-owned one of the Cypriot banks Paul Manafort and his Russian friends used to launder money. Ross was Vice Chairman of the bank. Will Ross be questioned about this, or about the $2 billion missing from his financial disclosure forms?

Senator Tom Udall asks the $2 billion question about Wilbur Ross

Russian bots and trolls are in the news, but the Mercers, who bought and owned Breitbart and bought and owned the Brietbart subsidiary named Steve Bannon, are themselves heavily invested in troll farming, and election rigging via their massive data crunching firm Cambridge Analytica.

Bill Moyers on the Mercers

There is also a Bizarro version of the Russia conspiracy in which Hillary conspired with Putin (who despised her) to lose the election…

NYMag explains the upside down defense of Trump

And this reporting from VOX, same bizarro topic

Seems ludicrous but it has an enormous press empire pushing it into the public mind. Kind of like how Putin did it.

But even in FoxWorld there are people jumping ship having had enough of lying and treason.

Reported by CNN-Money