David Drehle, a writer for the Washington Post, wrote today about Trump’s long Association with unsavory characters.
This won’t trouble Trump’s base. Nor will it trouble the Republican members of Congress who live in fear of The Don.
How did our society sink so low?
He writes:
Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas titled their classic group portrait of Harry S. Truman’s foreign policy team, “The Wise Men.” A book about Donald Trump’s associations might be called “The Wise Guys.”
Mario Puzo would’ve been just the man to write it. Martin Scorsese could option the movie rights.
And if he’s not in prison when filming starts, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort deserves a role. Though Manafort hasn’t been accused of Mafia membership, Smooth Paulie certainly acts the part, judging from testimony at his trial in federal court on charges of fraud and tax evasion. He has a closet full of suits worthy of John Gotti (though even the Dapper Don might have balked at an ostrich-skin windbreaker) and a maze of offshore bank accounts dense enough to addle Meyer Lansky.
When Manafort’s turncoat lieutenant Rick Gates took the stand to detail their alleged conspiracies, I was transported to the day back in 1992 when Gotti’s underboss Sammy Gravano began singing at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. Gotti’s lawyers attacked Sammy the Bull by demanding to know how many people he’d whacked. Manafort’s team asked Gates how many affairs he’s had.
If it seems harsh to compare Manafort to a mobster, take it up with President Trump, who got the ball rolling with a tweet before the trial began. “Looking back at history, who was treated worse, [Al] Capone, legendary mob boss . . . or Paul Manafort?” Trump mused.
And the president ought to know: He has spent plenty of time in mobbed-up milieus. As many journalists have documented — the late Wayne Barrett and decorated investigator David Cay Johnston most deeply — Trump’s trail was blazed through one business after another notorious for corruption by organized crime.
Michael Cohen flipping? Opinion writer Jennifer Rubin says the Mueller investigation is looking more and more like a mafia case. (Gillian Brockell, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)
New York construction, for starters. In 1988, Vincent “the Fish” Cafaro of the Genovese crime family testified before a U.S. Senate committee concerning the Mafia’s control of building projects in New York. Construction unions and concrete contractors were deeply dirty, Cafaro confirmed, and four of the city’s five crime families worked cooperatively to keep it that way.
This would not have been news to Trump, whose early political mentor and personal lawyer was Roy Cohn, consigliere to such dons as Fat Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante. After Cohn guided the brash young developer through the gutters of city politics to win permits for Trump Plaza and Trump Tower, it happened that Trump elected to build primarily with concrete rather than steel. He bought the mud at inflated prices from S&A Concrete, co-owned by Cohn’s client Salerno and Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino family.
Coincidence? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Trump moved next into the New Jersey casino business, which was every bit as clean as it sounds. State officials merely shrugged when Trump bought a piece of land from associates of Philadelphia mob boss “Little Nicky” Scarfo for roughly $500,000 more than it was worth. However, this and other ties persuaded police in Australia to block Trump’s bid to build a casino in Sydney in 1987, citing Trump’s “Mafia connections.”
His gambling interests led him into the world of boxing promotion, where Trump became chums with fight impresario Don King, a former Cleveland numbers runner. (Trump once told me that he owes his remarkable coiffure to King, who advised the future president, from personal experience, that outlandish hair is great PR) King hasn’t been convicted since the 1960s, when he did time for stomping a man to death. But investigators at the FBI and U.S. Senate concluded that his Mafia ties ran from Cleveland to New York, Las Vegas to Atlantic City. Mobsters “were looking to launder illicit cash,” wrote one sleuth. “Boxing, of all the sports, was perhaps the most accommodating laundromat, what with its international subculture of unsavory characters who play by their own rules.”
But an even more accommodating laundromat came along: luxury real estate — yet another mob-adjacent field in which the Trump name has loomed large. Because buyers of high-end properties often hide their identities, it’s impossible to say how many Russian Mafia oligarchs own Trump-branded condos. Donald Trump Jr. gave a hint in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”
For instance: In 2013, federal prosecutors indicted Russian mob boss Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov and 33 others on charges related to a gambling ring operating from two Trump Tower condos that allegedly laundered more than $100 million. A few months later, the same Mr. Tokhtakhounov, a fugitive from U.S. justice, was seen on the red carpet at Trump’s Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
Obviously, not everyone in these industries is corrupt, and if Donald Trump spent four decades rubbing elbows with wiseguys and never got dirty, he has nothing to worry about from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. But does he look unworried to you?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Robert Mueller was very much involved in Boston and Providence criminal cases. He investigated the worse of the worse. He was part of the investigation team that brought a RiCO charge against Mayor Buddy Cianci. The very popular Cianci faced numerous other charges with the RICO charge. The public that followed the trial learned a lot about what a RICO charge is-primarily an individual facing a RICO does not have to have committed criminal acts but as a head of an organization the individual could be in trouble for criminal acts that others commit. Cianci went to jail for five years for a RICO charge. So now Trump as a head of his political campaign committee where several individuals could be charged with all sorts of money laundering crimes could/should face a RICO indictment. Mr Mueller should accept that What was used against Buddy Cianci should be used against Donald Trump. The RICO crime it seems rises to a level of “high crime” enough to impeach Trump. Submitted by Bill Murphy, Dunedin, Fl.
Sent from my iPad
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Yes, well-summarized, an ugly picture. Does this mean then that govt. is a form of organized crime whose other main branch is the mafia?
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PBS’s Frontline did a story about Trump and Roy Cohn.
“Roy Cohn taught Donald how to come out punching, how to use lawsuits like machine gun bullets and take a no-prisoners approach to City Hall, to your business opponents, to anyone else who might get in your way. And I think Donald reveled in that.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/president-trump/transcript/
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Roy Cohn was one of the most corrupt people of the 20th century in the USA.
He was disbarred before he died.
No ethics whatever.
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I heard that PBS Frontline show on the radio while I was driving and if anyone that voted for Trump listened to that first, and they still supported Trump, I’d suggest they check into nut house, have a lobotomy and never vote again.
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If only more people understood who Roy Cohn was! I know about him from several sources, including “Angels in America”. One more area where our schools could improve: teaching the anti-role-models and role models from our history. Too bad we’ve jettisoned all this for useless literacy skills drills and confusing Common Core math.
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Common Core and those high stakes rank and punish tests don’t leave any room for teachers to teach L-12 kids how to tell the difference between a mobbed-up guy like Trump and someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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True –but, my God, do kids nowadays have crack literacy and math skills! And amazing critical thinking and problem solving skills to boot! The ignorance is totally worth it.
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Lloyd Lofthouse.
Common Core may be responsible for the next generation. Neither Common Core nor the test mania that started in the 90s can be held responsible for the generations of voters who elected Trump most of whom are above 50. So, they actually went to school when some version of civics was taught or at least Social Studies. Thinking about it we have been pathetic for quite some time. Much is made of Trumps
uneducated HS Blue collar base. Yet at the same time, we hear the college-educated suburbs have been Republican strongholds. So Trump is an aberration. I guess Nixon and Reagan were not bigots and demagogues blowing racial dog whistles. And Reagan too had to pay his respect to the good Nazis. Nixon did and Reagan may also have conspired with a foreign power to sway an election.
Perhaps you might speculate as to how much worse than Trump it could be with Common Core. I don’t even want to imagine that.
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Common Core is like a mini-gun spewing bullets by the thousands.
Our memories don’t work well-having lists of standards crammed in one after another. The way our brains work, what a child is taught may not be there the next day, or a week or a month later.
We now know, if you bother to learn what science is discovering, that our brains can not remember everything they are exposed to on a daily basis or our brains would crash. In addition, what all of us remember is decided while our body sleeps but our brains don’t. In fact, it has been discovered that our brains are more active when we are sleeping than when we are awake.
Just because a child doesn’t get an answer right on that end of the ear Common Core test doesn’t mean they were not taught it, didn’t read about it, didn’t watch films about it, et al.
That’s why Common Core is Crap and the focus should be on teaching children critical thinking and problem-solving skills in addition to fostering a love of reading. Once those three are in place and entrenched, the odds favor children growing up to be life-long learners who will know how to find the answer when they need it that was on that list of Common Core crap.
I think what you just did by bringing up Nixon and Reagon meddling in the elections of other countries is a switch and bate tactic that has nothing to do with what is happening today.
That happened decades ago. What is happening now is more important than what two dead men did back then.
If you think it is okay for Russia to meddle in US elections to elect a moron like Trump who because of his malignant narcissism will destroy the country, does that mean you support Russia and Putin?
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I agree with Lloyd, Joel, and Ponderosa on this posting series. Joel is correct in that election of inferior candidates is not new ( reference James Buchanan, Warren Harding, more distant incompetents from eras way before CC). Lloyd is correct in that the CC and testing mode we are in leads to a bad outcome, and Ponderosa is always good about pointing out that knowing how to think critically does you no good if you have nothing to think about.
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Lloyd Lofthouse
I think you missed the whole point. I’ll start with the bait and switch: Nixon sabotaged the peace talks by promising the South a better deal before he was elected. That action arguably cost the lives of 30k additional American boys. Reagan most likely sabotaged the hostage release and may have given information about a second rescue attempt. Of course, we may never know Bush pardoned everybody.
So there is a long history of Republicans willing to commit treason and put personal political interests over the interests of the Nation.
Both Nixon and Reagan were also blatant racists. Nixon starting the Southern strategy aimed at appealing to the bigots in the South and elsewhere for political gain. Who can forget Reagan and his tales of the welfare queen.
As for Common Core, we have not seen the results yet. You can not blame the election of Trump on CC as that few if any voters who have any experience with CC are eligible to vote. You can hardly blame it on the emphasis on testing as that Trump’s support is strongest among those 50 and over.
Lastly, what would make you think that anything I had ever said could lead one to believe that I support Trumputin?
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I don’t think the Common Core had much at all to do with Trump’s winning the Electoral College vote and losing the popular vote by almost 3-million. The Russians allied with the Alt-Right lying media machine was the major factor for that.
As for Common Core itself, what results are you talking about? Results have been flowing in for years that NCLB and most if not all of the fake ed-reformer crap that flowed from MCLB has failed repeatedly and Diane has posted numerous blogs here with links that mention the evidence from studies of the repeated failure of corporate reform of public education. The Common Core crap was a major element of that reform. In fact, the Common Core crap was linked to high stakes rank and punished tests as a weapon designed to blow up traditional public education.
The evidence for that is the fact that is the double standards where corporate charter schools were not bribed to implement the Common Core Crap and use high stakes rank and punish tests to close schools and punish teachers.
Public schools were punished through the Common Core Crap and high stakes rank and punish tests for being transparent while Corporate Charter schools are still allowed to be opaque and secretive leading to repeated crimes of fraud.
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Speaking of Common Core…Do you ever watch the over the top show Teachers? Maybe we can all use a laugh…
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Thanks, Mamie –that is funny.
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Lloyd Lofthouse
Spare me the lecture on CC and corporate education reform. I agree with you. I just have a tough time tying k-12 education to election results. I have an even more mind-boggling task when I hear the meme about” College educated Republican Suburbs.”
What role did their formal education play in shaping their ethos?
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Joel Herman: “I have an even more mind-boggling task when I hear the meme about” College educated Republican Suburbs.”
…….
What about Trump and his family? They were all ‘educated’ at the ‘best’ private schools in the US and none of them have any morals. Anyone who wants us to think that expensive private schools are doing a great job need to have his/her head examined.
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We could ask the same question about Betsy DeVos and the private, religious schools she attended.
DeVos grew up as a member of the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
DeVos was educated at the Holland Christian High School, a private school located in her home town of Holland, Michigan.[22] She graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business economics in 1979.
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“What role did their formal education play in shaping their ethos?”
Good question.
Depends on where they went to school but we know that formal education plays a smaller role in shaping a child compared to a child’s parents and family.
What role does being home taught play in shaping their ethos vs public schools where a child is exposed to 30 – 50 teachers K-12 and those teachers reflect the political spectrum from conservatives, moderates, and progressives?
Even the state and local community play a role in shaping our ethos. Does a child living in San Francisco have the same experience K-12 vs a child growing up in a heavily racist area in Mississippi?
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While some—rightly—see Roy Cohn as the connection between Joe McCarthy and this president*, another one is also worth considering. Connected with Cohn and McCarthy was Robert Kennedy. While one can admire Kennedy for his “evolving” world view, he was human and not some deity-like individual.
These connections demonstrate that political behavior is as much fueled by personal connections that make no political sense as it is by ideas, power, timing and heredity. This president* proves it every day.
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Don’t forget where the Kennedy family fortune came from. Robert Kennedy’s daddy was one of the mob bosses.
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“Truman’s support of Kennedy had not come naturally. The “boy” was too young, too inexperienced, even too Catholic – but most of all, he was Joe Kennedy’s son, and Truman loathed the isolationist, pro-McCarthy ex-Ambassador to Great Britain. “It’s not the Pope I’m afraid of,” he once famously cracked, “it’s the pop.” But Jack Kennedy kept calling and courting, and ultimately Truman, at the age of 76, campaigned for him in nine states.”
The above from shapelldotorg
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In the last week. I have noticed attack dogs defending Trump against charges he is racist. Some sound like clones of Rudy the so-called attorney. All of the surrogates are white males who claim that income for “blacks and latinos” have never been higher because Trump has the right economic policies. All defend his stance on immigrants and “illegal aliens.” One thing is obvious: The messaging from Trumpland is coherent, targeted, and designed to dismiss any claim to the contrary.
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I lived in Brooklyn all my life; I sat next to Bernie Sanders in social studies. I remember the elder Trump, and I know exactly what Trump is… through watching his behavior.
I LOVE YOUR clear analysis of our president. You are a famed historian and you can see the long view’ of this man… for all his antics and shenanigans. I love your blog, and the thoughtful conversations that you initiate, in this ‘room’ where so many bright minds come to mull things over, and to say WTF — in their own polite manner.
Trump is a malignant narcissist, the prerequisite for the mobster.But that he exists in the executive office, where our other presidents once sat, is not only deeply offensive, but dangerous. This is the moment when ” the United States must to awaken from its collective slumber about the creeping dangers of kleptocracy.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/this-is-so-much-bigger-than-paul-manafort/566501/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20180731&silverid-ref=MzM0NTY0NzMyNzIyS0
But if you wish to stay with the ‘gangster’ metaphor, look at his behavior in Helsinki, as that sly-dog Putin, looks on, thinking all the while; “what an idiot. How stupid is he?”
https://video.newyorker.com/watch/the-absurdity-of-the-trump-putin-summit-in-helsinki
We are at THIS moment — and we know WHO he is, and how he got where he did.
“The presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” Michelle Obama said.
We know his ‘character’ — or lack there of — so when he SEE him doing crazy shi*t — like with the tariffs and Turkey…you know— stuff that is DESTABILIZING our economy and our place in the world at this dangerous moment—- we need to CRY OUT: Stop!
Our Congress cannot muster up the PASSAGE OF BILLS to protect our laws, so that when this crime-boss, and his King-pin SESSIONS shout a new policy on TWITTER WHEN THEY makes a new rule, to replace the EXISTING LAW WITH Trump’s ‘VERSION’ we need our CONGRESS to say; “SORRY! YOU CANNOT DO THAT!
Our immigration law ON THE BOOKS, DOES NOT PERMIT THE DEPRIVATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS TO PEOPLE APPLYING FOR ASYLUM. You sent that women and her kids back to be killed. That Jeff, is NOT OUR LAW!… good try! But, we actually have rules in that LAW, which forbids INHUMAN behavior by a federal authority like iCE!
The mobsters — like all criminals — need to eliminate the real safeguards that were put in place by thoughtful men
THEY ARE LAWLESS, because they are never held ACCOUNTABLE.
The ‘long view’ of this moment in time, will show that it is this LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY which made it all possible.
From Citizens United to the offshore LLC’s where the world’s stolen wealth resides, there is no accountability for even the most shameless of offenses. A ‘mannafort’ will be revealed for his excesses (ostrich suits?); but the real king-pins– aka the Kochs and their clones will never see justice.
WE NEED TO BE RID OF THE MOBSTERS in our governement!
Trump has to GO! We know that this klepto-psycho is undoing everything we need WHILE DOING NOTHING TO REPAIR the infrastructure, or to fund/SUPPORT the institutions — like education and health care — which ARE AMONG THE TOP REASONS for having a GOVERNMENT.
The Senators and Reps who betray us and kiss his ring, … need to BE GONE… OUT OF OFFICE!
I appreciate the view of his long, criminal career as a con-man, but I, for one want to see CONGRESS do something. I want to see a lawsuit brought against this citizen of the US for stealing from me— stealing the future, inviting chaos and even utter disaster.
His utter contempt will kill us all.
But what do I know…
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Trump can’t kill everyone unless he and Putin work together to roast the rest of the world with nuclear weapons. Trump has a better chance with help from the extreme right and Putin to destroy our civilization and turn North American into a slaughterhouse.
Trump and Putin are arrogant psychopathic criminals that think they can’t lose. It’s a common trait for psycho criminals to think they are smarter than everyone else and will never get caught or convicted. That’s why they might do it.
Only then will everyone die because after those two monsters launch their bomb tipped missiles, will China, Europe. Pakistan and Israel strike back with their 1,000 or so bombs that will take out the US and Russia.
Any survivors in the surface will die from climate change and/or the radiation. A few of the wealthiest and most powerful people will be the last to go since they have the money to built the best deep shelters and probably already have them in place. But they will die too eventually or their children will.
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The close association with Don King tells the story. There are few bigger scumbags than Don King. Trump would be one of them.
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Now if I could just get my Democratic Congressman to use that word to describe Trump. A Republican would have no problem if the situation was reversed.
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My Democratic Congresswoman, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12), on Trump: “He is absolutely disgusting, and he is an embarrassment as president of the United States of America, and he makes me sick to my stomach,” she added. “You know, he just can’t take any kind of a criticism. He has absolutely no connection with reality. He is an egotist, a narcissist and he is very incompetent. So if you put all those things together, you expect them to be nothing but inappropriate responses, reactions and statements coming from him. He doesn’t surprise me, he just disgusts me, that he just continues to sink lower and lower and lower and lower.”
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Coleman’s comment to Gohmert, “Do you need your medication?”, was my favorite line of the year.
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All the Orange Menace wants is successful photo ops to prove he is NOT a bit racist. BS. I’m sure that if his true nature were to go roaring loose, we’d hear some ‘very fine words’ fit for racist-lovers. [He loves mobsters but not blacks since they are unable to loan him money.]
……………………………..
NAACP slams Trump as ‘racist’
By BEATRICE PETERSON 08/10/2018 12:15 PM EDT
Racial and ethnic tensions remain high in the U.S. one year after President Donald Trump ignited controversy by initially failing to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis following a deadly clash in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The NAACP’s president, Derrick Johnson, spoke with POLITICO recently and weighed in on Trump, his administration and the state of race relations. Trump has declined to meet with civil rights leaders, Johnson said, even though the NAACP has repeatedly invited him to address its members, both as a candidate and as president. (The nonpartisan organization has met with every U.S. president, as well as many candidates for the office, since Harry S. Truman in 1947.)
While Trump did meet with the leaders of historically black colleges and universities in 2017 and 2018, as well as with African-American faith leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus, Johnson described the encounters as “basic photo opportunities.”…
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/10/naacp-slams-trump-as-racist-771188
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I”d say that Trump is a little worried about the race riots that probably will occur today in front of the WH. It’s a little late, Orange one.
……….
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!
8:26 AM – Aug 11, 2018
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59.2K people are talking about this
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and that’s a good point: people who typically avoid the subject are finally TALKING about it
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The end game of the radical right was revealed in the book I just finished “Democracy In Chains” by Nancy MacLean-History Professor at Duke University. For years I have been studying the Koch Brothers two organizations, AFP and ALEC attempt to take over State Houses all across the nation. Through the use of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and reshaping the census, the Koch Brothers are seeking to capture 34 states and call a Constitutional Convention. At the convention they hope to implement thirteen justice amendments which would require a balanced budget and in the process destroy all social programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They hope to enact their agenda in the face of overwhelming opposition.
For years I have been reading about Charles Koch’s vision for recruitment of young libertarian clones at George Mason University in Virginia. What I didn’t know was that the true architect of the Koch movement was the Nobel Prize winning political economist James McGill Buchanan, who taught economics at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and finally George Mason University . He died in 2013 in his house on the campus GMU
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This is why we must educate the voters. Teachers need to go door to door with flip books that explain all this with crystal clarity. (But first teachers must overcome their prejudice against “teacher talk”. Teacher talk is GOOD!)
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The Leaning Tower of Trump (Video)
by MARK FIORE AUGUST 9, 2018
The Leaning Tower of Trump seems to be leaning a little more each day. The shifting explanations of the famed 2016 Trump Tower meeting between the Trump campaign and Kremlin connected operatives seem to be inching closer to the truth.
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This video worked when I clicked on the ‘Watch on Vimeo’.
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Yes, (sigh). When I worked in the power-plant engrg/constr biz (’70’s-’80’s), I remember the tales my first boss back in MI used to tell of the trials trying to get Indian Point 2&3 built (nucl units just N of NYC) when the mob owned everything from the concrete to the vending machines.
Commercial construction was known to be worse for that (as suggested by the posted article). There wasn’t a way to do NYC / NJ commercial construction in the ’70’s & ’80’s w/o multiple mob dealings. Tho mob influence has waned since then, graft & fraud corruption remained / remains rampant in the industry; there can be no clean hands for a major operator in RE projects there. Hence the outlandishness of backing a presidential candidate with a long history in that industry in that locale.
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Bethree,
My ex-husband was in construction and real estate during that era. He never worked with the mob. He never made a payoff. He is the most ethical person I know. He clashed with Trump. Trump is a low life. Dick Ravitch proved it was possible to be honest in that field.
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Glad to hear that Diane, & apologies for the broad-brush. The family I was raised in were land-developers & constructors upstate, & my brother’s career included a couple of yrs in Greenwich & many yrs in Orlando, & they were also honest as the day is long.
The scuttlebut I continually heard in my decade w/engrg&constr involved enormous projects by Bechtel & Halliburton etc, & huge NYC commercial ventures constructed by Tishman, LeFrak etc. On that scale, there would have to have been pay-offs to get things built, as mob (by their own admission in court, late ’80’s) were solidly ensconced in matls-supply & labor affecting 75% of NYC bldg projects.
None of that normalizes Trump & your ex’s accurate characterization. Trump went direct to mob consigliere Cohn for advice on his first bump in the road – before he was 30 – forming a tight relationship which no doubt benefited, among other things, from Cohn’s client ready-mix king Salerno.
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