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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/3/1555927/-Donald-Trump-may-be-acting-crazy-but-it-s-keeping-the-news-away-from-the-one-story-he-wants-to-bury?detail=facebook?detail=email&link_id=1&can_id=1b54be4c01232388704f6dbb31c47a1c&source=email-donald-trump-may-be-acting-crazy-but-its-keeping-the-news-away-from-the-one-story-he-wants-to-bury&email_referrer=donald-trump-may-be-acting-crazy-but-its-keeping-the-news-away-from-the-one-story-he-wants-to-bury&email_subject=donald-trump-may-be-acting-crazy-but-its-keeping-the-news-away-from-the-one-story-he-wants-to-bury
"If there was any evidence Donald Trump was capable of thinking beyond the next moment, it would be easy to suspect that 90 percent of what’s bubbled from his lips over the last three days is a diversion. Attacking the Khans. Hints that he won’t accept the results of the election. Complaints that the polls are fishy. Saying that women should run away from sexual harassment. Even kicking a baby out of a rally. All of it.
Because as bad as all this is, if it serves to fend off media attention from the thing Trump’s campaign has suddenly gone quiet about, it could be worth it. Because the thing they’re not talking about is Russia.
While Donald Trump may now claim that his request for Russia to interfere in the election was just an example of sarcasm, it certainly didn't seem that way to those listening on that day. And even if you wave that away—including the calls for a Senate hearing on the topic—other aspects of this story simply can't be passed off as a joke.
In particular this is one place where both Donald Trump and campaign manager Paul Manafort are deliberately, publicly, and obviously lying. And that should be setting off major alarms.
Donald Trump campaign Chair Paul Manafort denied Sunday a two-week-old report that the campaign pushed for changes in the Republican platform that softened the party's stance on helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. …
When asked once more if anyone on the campaign was involved, Manafort said, "No one, zero.”
The problem with Manafort’s claim is that there are hundreds of witnesses to the contrary...
[...]
Let’s review:
1. Donald Trump has frequently expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin, viewing him as a “strong” leader who Trump “admires.” Trump has also given wildly differing statements on his personal relationship with Putin.
2. Trump has, on multiple occasions, suggested a weakening of the NATO alliance.
3. Despite this, Trump previously expressed support for the Ukraine.
4. After Trump hired Paul Manafort, a man who had worked for—and may still be working for—pro-Russian forces seeking to destroy the democratic government of the Ukraine, Trump’s position on the Ukraine changed to one that is far more friendly to Russia.
5. Trump campaign staff, including former Rumsfeld assistant J. D. Gordon, halted the implementation of pro-Ukraine language in the GOP platform, and insisted on language that was much more supportive of Russia after saying they had to speak directly to Trump about the policy.
6. One week after the change was written into the GOP platform, emails hacked from the DNC were released through Wikileaks. Both government and independent investigators have identified the hackers as being associated with the Russian government.
7. Donald Trump suggested that Russia might also hack Hillary Clinton’s email server and recover 30,000 emails (which are not “missing,” but were personal emails deleted by a team of lawyers who reviewed the server).
8. Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic, but within a week of his request, further hacks took place at the DCCC and the Hillary Clinton campaign. These hacks have also been identified as coming from Russian sources.
9. Both Manafort and Trump issued denials that they had anything to do with the changes to the Republican platform, despite the many witnesses and despite having made no objection to the news as it was reported at the time.
10. Trump, in an interview, seemed not only confused about the two-year-old invasion of the Ukraine, but gave apparently contradictory indications that, were he elected, he would cede the occupied Crimea to Russia, and that the Russians would withdraw from the Ukraine.
None of that is speculation. Not one word of it is theory.
Right now, there’s no proof that Trump and Manafort have been involved in a quid-pro-quo arrangement with Vladimir Putin. However, this whole thing stinks to high heaven. This isn’t just a hint of smoke on the horizon, this is a raging forest fire of connections between a United States presidential candidate and a foreign power.
As much as you may be offended over how Trump has treated the Kahns, as incensed as you may be over Trump’s misogynistic response to questions about sexual harassment, as bad as you may feel for that embarrassed woman holding a crying child … this is the story Donald Trump hopes you forget.
Donald Trump is suddenly pretending that he never met or talked with Vladimir Putin, when he previously said he did. Donald Trump is suddenly pretending that he had nothing to do with pro-Russian language in the Republican platform when we know his campaign put it there. Manafort is denying any involvement from the campaign. We know that’s not true.
There’s a great big why that needs to be answered by Manafort and Trump. Because it’s very easy to think of an answer.
Vladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the West—and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump. Over the past decade, Russia has boosted right-wing populists across Europe. It loaned money to Marine Le Pen in France, well-documented transfusions of cash to keep her presidential campaign alive. Such largesse also wended its way to the former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who profited “personally and handsomely” from Russian energy deals, as an American ambassador to Rome once put it. (Berlusconi also shared a 240-year-old bottle of Crimean wine with Putin and apparently makes ample use of a bed gifted to him by the Russian president.)
There’s a clear pattern: Putin runs stealth efforts on behalf of politicians who rail against the European Union and want to push away from NATO.
Oh, yeah, and Donald Trump still refuses to release his taxes. Which is a very convenient position for someone who may have some … external sources of funds.
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