What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[jimmy olsen]

Poor Kansas, I don't think the timing is going to work out fellas

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/20/520821758/as-aca-repeal-vote-nears-kansas-debates-expanding-medicaid?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170320

As ACA Repeal Vote Nears, Kansas Debates Expanding Medicaid

[Eddie Teach]

Perhaps it might prod their senators to reconsider repeal.

[FunkMonk]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/22/rex-tillerson-i-didnt-want-this-job

"I didn't want this job. I didn't seek this job," Tillerson told the Independent Journal Review (IJR), in an interview conducted on his official plane during the three-nation Asia trip. "My wife told me I'm supposed to do this."

He said he had not met Donald Trump before being summoned to Trump Tower after the surprise election victory, ostensibly to talk to the president-elect "about the world" and his experiences as an oil company CEO.

Everything makes a lot more sense nowadays if you realize no one in the Trump Administration actually cares about their job.

[jimmy olsen]

What a farce

http://www.voanews.com/a/african-trade-conference-canceled-after-visas-denied-african-delegates/3770907.html

Africa Trade Meeting Has No Africans After US Visa Denials

LOS ANGELES —
Each year, the University of Southern California brings delegations from Africa to meet with business leaders, government officials and others in the U.S. But this year, the African summit has no Africans. All were denied visas.

Visa issues are not uncommon for people traveling from African nations. During her prior three summits, Mary Flowers saw a high percentage of her attendees at the African Global Economic and Development Summit, unable to attain visas.

"Usually we get 40 percent that get rejected but the others come," said Flowers, chair of the African Global Economic and Development Summit. "This year it was 100 percent. Every delegation. And it was sad to see, because these people were so disheartened."

Flowers estimated that she lost about 100 attendees, including speakers and government officials. The countries affected included Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa.

'A discrimination issue'

"I have to say that most of us feel it's a discrimination issue with the African nations," said Flowers. "We experience it over and over and over, and the people being rejected are legitimate business people with ties to the continent."

A request for comment from the State Department was not immediately returned.

Flowers said those who were denied visas were called for embassy interviews just days before they were supposed to travel, despite having applied weeks or even months ahead of time.

One of those denied a visa was Prince Kojo Hilton, a Ghanaian artist whose work includes special effects and graphic art. He paid his $500 fee to attend the event and was asked to lead a session on filmmaking. But he held off buying his plane ticket until his appointment at the embassy on March 13, four days before he was supposed to travel.

"I was really disappointed when I went to the embassy," Hilton said in an interview with VOA.

Travel ban

It remains unclear why all of the Africans heading to the event were denied visas this year.

Diane E. Watson, who formerly represented a Los Angeles-area district in Congress, said she had called the State Department to ask for information about the denial of visas for would-be delegates to the USC summit. But the State Department isn't allowed to discuss individual visa cases.

With the heightened attention on foreign nationals coming to the U.S., there have been stories of more visas being denied to people from countries other than those named in the Trump administration's executive orders. But visas are routinely denied by U.S. embassies without explanation.

If there has been an increase in the number of visas rejected under the new administration, it's hard to verify. The publicly available State Department data dates only to late 2016.

[Syt]

I'm sure Beijing will be happy to hold an African trade summit. They're investing a lot in the continent at the moment.

[jimmy olsen]

What the ...

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-daughter-text-messages-ukraine-2017-3

Hacked text messages allegedly sent by Paul Manafort's daughter discuss 'blood money' and killings, and a Ukrainian lawyer wants him to explain

Natasha Bertrand

On February 20, 2014, Ukrainian riot police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in central Kiev. They were protesting President Viktor Yanukovych's last-minute decision to back out of a deal with the European Union that would have distanced Ukraine from Russia and fostered closer ties with the West.

A human-rights lawyer representing the victims of the mass police shootings, Eugenia Zakrevska, now wants to know who was advising or influencing Yanukovych when he ordered Ukrainian security forces to crush the protests with force.

One familiar name that has emerged in recent weeks is Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager who advised Yanukovych for nearly a decade.

Late last month, hackers broke into Manafort's daughter's iPhone and published four years' worth of purported text messages — roughly 300,000 messages — on the dark web, an encrypted network that can be accessed only with a special browser.

Now, Zakrevska is calling on Manafort "to clarify the allegations contained in the text messages and to contact us with any information he may have" about the events that occurred in central Kiev between February 18 and 20, 2014, she told CNN earlier this month.

Reached for comment on Friday, Zakrevska told Business Insider that there was still "no answer to my request, and I don't expect it so quickly."

Manafort did not respond to request for comment from Business Insider. He confirmed to Politico late last month that his daughter Andrea had been hacked, and he corroborated some exchanges while declining to comment on others.

'That money we have is blood money'

In a series of texts reviewed by Business Insider that appear to have been sent by Andrea to her sister, Jessica, in March 2015, Andrea said their father had "no moral or legal compass."

"Don't fool yourself," Andrea wrote to her sister, according to the texts. "That money we have is blood money."

"You know he has killed people in Ukraine? Knowingly," she continued, according to the reviewed texts. "As a tactic to outrage the world and get focus on Ukraine. Remember when there were all those deaths taking place. A while back. About a year ago. Revolts and what not. Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered."

Andrea did not respond to a request for comment.

Paul was a top adviser to Yanukovych from 2004 to 2014. Ukrainian authorities have said Yanukovych created the conditions that led to the security forces opening fire. Ukraine's interior minister issued a warrant for Yanukovych's arrest shortly after the uprising. He fled to Russia and was granted asylum.

Manafort has not been linked to the killings.

Manafort, a Republican operative who had advised authoritarian leaders like the Democratic Republic of Congo's Mobutu Sese Seko and the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, is credited with revamping Yanukovych's image and helping him win the presidency in 2010.

Manafort advised Yanukovych until he was ousted amid the protests. Manafort resurrected the Party of Regions in late 2014, rebranding it as the Opposition Bloc and expanding it to include parties that had been opposed to the protests and, later, to the new pro-EU president, Petro Poroshenko.

'Ukraine is late in paying him'
In a series of texts to a friend in March 2015, Andrea appears to have said Ukraine was "late in paying" her father.

"He is cash poor right now," the text said. "And now Ukraine is late in paying him."

In a later exchange with a man who appeared to be Andrea's cousin — and one of her father's former employees — Collin Bond, Andrea appears to have said her mother and father couldn't go through a "public divorce" because Manafort had "too many skeletons" and "his work and payment in Ukraine is legally questionable."

Bond worked as a political consultant and election-law attorney for Manafort's consulting firm, Davis Manafort Partners Inc., from 2005 to 2010, according to a LinkedIn page with his name. A description of his work at the firm says he "worked with a team that guided the client to victory in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election."

Bond did not respond to request for comment.

"He is a sick f---ing tyrant," Andrea appears to have said to Bond about her father. "And we keep showing up and dancing for him. ... We just keep showing up and eating the lobster. Nothing changes."

Ledgers uncovered by an anticorruption center in Kiev in 2016 suggested that the Party of Regions had designated $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments for Manafort between 2007 and 2012. Manafort's lawyer has denied that he ever collected the earmarked payments.

The New York Times reported on Monday that a Ukrainian member of parliament had accused Manafort of trying to hide $750,000 in payments from the Party of Regions by funneling it to offshore accounts. Manafort's spokesman told The Times that the allegations were "baseless" and should be "summarily dismissed."

[jimmy olsen]

Well would you look at that.

http://resistancereport.com/world/man-thrown-fourth-floor/

Key witness in Preet Bharara's Russian probe just fell from fourth floor of building

[jimmy olsen]

https://apnews.com/122ae0b5848345faa88108a03de40c5a/Manafort's-plan-to-'greatly-benefit-the-Putin-Government

AP Top News
AP Exclusive: Manafort had plan to benefit Putin government


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort himself that he never worked for Russian interests.

Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse. Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.


"We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success," Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, "will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government."

Manafort's plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars. How much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.

The disclosure comes as Trump campaign advisers are the subject of an FBI probe and two congressional investigations. Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign. Manafort has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and misguided, and said he never worked for Russian interests. The documents obtained by AP show Manafort's ties to Russia were closer than previously revealed.

In a statement to the AP, Manafort confirmed that he worked for Deripaska in various countries but said the work was being unfairly cast as "inappropriate or nefarious" as part of a "smear campaign."

"I worked with Oleg Deripaska almost a decade ago representing him on business and personal matters in countries where he had investments," Manafort said. "My work for Mr. Deripaska did not involve representing Russia's political interests."


Deripaska became one of Russia's wealthiest men under Putin, buying assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin's interests. U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 described Deripaska as "among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis" and "a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin's trips abroad." In response to questions about Manafort's consulting firm, a spokesman for Deripaska in 2008 — at least three years after they began working together — said Deripaska had never hired the firm. Another Deripaska spokesman in Moscow last week declined to answer AP's questions.

When asked Wednesday about Manafort's work for Deripaska, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "we do not feel it's appropriate to comment on someone who is not an employee at the White House."

Manafort worked as Trump's unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August. Trump asked Manafort to resign after AP revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine's ruling pro-Russian political party.

The newly obtained business records link Manafort more directly to Putin's interests in the region. According to those records and people with direct knowledge of Manafort's work for Deripaska, Manafort made plans to open an office in Moscow, and at least some of Manafort's work in Ukraine was directed by Deripaska, not local political interests there. The Moscow office never opened.

Manafort has been a leading focus of the U.S. intelligence investigation of Trump's associates and Russia, according to a U.S. official. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation were confidential. Meanwhile, federal criminal prosecutors became interested in Manafort's activities years ago as part of a broad investigation to recover stolen Ukraine assets after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych there in early 2014. No U.S. criminal charges have ever been filed in the case.

FBI Director James Comey, in confirming to Congress the federal intelligence investigation this week, declined to say whether Manafort was a target. Manafort's name was mentioned 28 times during the hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, mostly about his work in Ukraine. No one mentioned Deripaska.

On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer had singled out Manafort when asked about possible campaign contacts with Russia. He said Manafort "played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time" in the campaign, even though as Trump's presidential campaign chairman he led it during the crucial run-up to the Republican National Convention.

Manafort and his associates remain in Trump's orbit. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone. Manafort's former business partner in eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions. Gates has since helped plan Trump's inauguration and now runs a nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda.

Gates, whose name does not appear in the documents, told the AP that he joined Manafort's firm in 2006 and was aware Manafort had a relationship with Deripaska, but he was not aware of the work described in the memos. Gates said his work was focused on domestic U.S. lobbying and political consulting in Ukraine at the time. He said he stopped working for Manafort's firm in March 2016 when he joined Trump's presidential campaign.

Manafort told Deripaska in 2005 that he was pushing policies as part of his work in Ukraine "at the highest levels of the U.S. government — the White House, Capitol Hill and the State Department," according to the documents. He also said he had hired a "leading international law firm with close ties to President Bush to support our client's interests," but he did not identify the firm. Manafort also said he was employing unidentified legal experts for the effort at leading universities and think tanks, including Duke University, New York University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Manafort did not disclose details about the lobbying work to the Justice Department during the period the contract was in place.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the department. Willfully failing to register is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, though the government rarely files criminal charges.

Deripaska owns Basic Element Co., which employs 200,000 people worldwide in the agriculture, aviation, construction, energy, financial services, insurance and manufacturing industries, and he runs one of the world's largest aluminum companies. Forbes estimated his net worth at $5.2 billion. How much Deripaska paid Manafort in total is not clear, but people familiar with the relationship said money transfers to Manafort amounted to tens of millions of dollars and continued through at least 2009. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the secret payments publicly.

In strategy memos, Manafort proposed that Deripaska and Putin would benefit from lobbying Western governments, especially the U.S., to allow oligarchs to keep possession of formerly state-owned assets in Ukraine. He proposed building "long term relationships" with Western journalists and a variety of measures to improve recruitment, communications and financial planning by pro-Russian parties in the region.

Manafort proposed extending his existing work in eastern Europe to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia, where he pledged to bolster the legitimacy of governments friendly to Putin and undercut anti-Russian figures through political campaigns, nonprofit front groups and media operations.

For the $10 million contract, Manafort did not use his public-facing consulting firm, Davis Manafort. Instead, he used a company, LOAV Ltd., that he had registered in Delaware in 1992. He listed LOAV as having the same address of his lobbying and consulting firms in Alexandria, Virginia. In other records, LOAV's address was listed as Manafort's home, also in Alexandria. Manafort sold the home in July 2015 for $1.4 million. He now owns an apartment in Trump Tower in New York, as well as other properties in Florida and New York.

One strategy memo to Deripaska was written by Manafort and Rick Davis, his business partner at the time. In written responses to the AP, Davis said he did not know that his firm had proposed a plan to covertly promote the interests of the Russian government.

Davis said he believes Manafort used his name without his permission on the strategy memo. "My name was on every piece of stationery used by the company and in every memo prior to 2006. It does not mean I had anything to do with the memo described," Davis said. He took a leave of absence from the firm in late 2006 to work on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Manafort's work with Deripaska continued for years, though they had a falling out laid bare in 2014 in a Cayman Islands bankruptcy court. The billionaire gave Manafort nearly $19 million to invest in a Ukrainian TV company called Black Sea Cable, according to legal filings by Deripaska's representatives. It said that after taking the money, Manafort and his associates stopped responding to Deripaska's queries about how the funds had been used.

Early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Deripaska's representatives openly accused Manafort of fraud and pledged to recover the money from him. After Trump earned the nomination, Deripaska's representatives said they would no longer discuss the case.

___

Associated Press writers Jack Gillum, Eric Tucker, Julie Pace, Ted Bridis, Stephen Braun and Julie Bykowicz contributed to this report in Washington; Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed from Moscow and Kiev, Ukraine; and Jake Pearson contributed from New York.

[Habbaku]

Well would you look at that.

http://resistancereport.com/world/man-thrown-fourth-floor/

Key witness in Preet Bharara's Russian probe just fell from fourth floor of building

The "Resistance Report"?  Jesus Christ.

[Syt]

The "Resistance Report"?  Jesus Christ.

Ohm My God!

[Valmy]

If they are so keen on resisting Trump I hope they bother to show up in 2018. Fucking Democrats in the midterms.

[derspiess]

Well would you look at that.

http://resistancereport.com/world/man-thrown-fourth-floor/

Key witness in Preet Bharara's Russian probe just fell from fourth floor of building

The "Resistance Report"?  Jesus Christ.

[derspiess]

Join the movement.  Scream a lot.

[CountDeMoney]

Well would you look at that.

http://resistancereport.com/world/man-thrown-fourth-floor/

Key witness in Preet Bharara's Russian probe just fell from fourth floor of building

The "Resistance Report"?  Jesus Christ.

Careful, Hab..."Jesus Christ" just might be someone's go-code in the Underground to blast the railway bridge.

WHY NO ITS NOT A PLUNGER DETONATOR
IT IS A LAMP

[CountDeMoney]

Join the movement.  Scream a lot.

Why are you rooting for the Russians?