Why So Many Republicans Are Retiring: NRA Quiet On Their Role As Russian Conduit In Butina Charges

[ancianita]

They are among those "ongoing cases".

In asking for the return of personal papers, the defense could possibly try a PR case in public.

Silence was consent for all these retiring Republicans who fear for their reputations, salvation and most of all, their stashes of ill-gotten gains.

So they're high-tailing it.

They forget that FBI history shows that it can and will indict by the hundreds.

[sandensea]

1. Half the GOP and NRA 'deposited its trust' in Butina, no doubt (know what I mean?).

And now she'll probably sing like a Cossack choir on payday.

[ancianita]

2. Funny, NOW, how these "righteous" got taken by a tool of deputy head of Russia's central bank.

But THEN, in 2014, the delusional premise of Republican interactions with Putin and Russia came because they wanted so badly to believe that Obama was a foreigner.

As long as U.S. is electing foreign-born presidents,” tweeted Tennessee attorney G. Kline Preston IV in 2013, “I propose Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”

Two years later, at a rally featuring soon-to-be-President Donald Trump, Preston tweeted: “Donald Trump today in Nashville. He is a friend of Russia.” He wrote the message in Russian.

Preston occasionally worked as a freelance elections observer for Russia, testifying about the fidelity and freedom of various Russian elections and bringing Moscow an American voice it can point to for legitimacy

.

Russia built possible "assets" in more than one branch of government.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-confederate-birther-introduced-maria-butinas-handler-to-nra-chief

[sandensea]

3. ANYTHING to win.

Putin, Bibi, hackers, narcos - you name it!

[lagomorph777]

4. Probably deposited something - and now they are "spending more time with their families"

...their rather angry families.

[sandensea]

5. I bet!

Once, a foreign despot somewhere appointed a laughably unqualified woman to a cabinet post; it was no secret the two were lovers at the time.

When a journalist asked the lady what, exactly, she attributed the high-powered appointment to, she replied nonchalantly that it was because of "the trust the president deposited in me."

It must have been a punchline for years.

[ancianita]

7. first time I've heard that one....

[sandensea]

10. Glad you liked it.

I found where that came from (thank you, Google): It was in Argentina, in '91.

The president at the time, a clownish little man called Carlos Menem, left his wife for this woman - an ambitious right-wing politician called María Julia Alsogaray.

She later stole something like $200 million from a river cleanup fund, and Menem, who privatized everything from social security to the subways, ran his country into debt and an eventual collapse in '01.

Here she is, baring it all in a local news magazine interview:



I wonder if Kristen Nielsen would be so bold (I'm sure she got her job in a similar way).

[ancianita]

11. Thanks. Wouldn't be surprised if cons' "interview couch" is counterpart to the "casting couch."

Maybe she got it because she's what her appointer thinks is a smart person (wink).

Privatization was the rage in Chile and Argentina in those days. Those were countries that Charles Koch and his academic mentee of Mount Pelerin and U of C economics fame, James M. Buchanan, called "free societies."

[sandensea]

12. Excellent point. Foreign leaders (even dictators) that back profitization are lionized

while those that oppose it are dragged through the mud - especially if renationalizing firms hollowed out by private owners (much like Toys-r-Us, PanAm, Eastern Airlines, and Circuit City were here in the U.S.).

Right-wing outfits always point to Chile as an "example" of how this can work (neglecting to mention the disaster it caused in neighboring Argentina in the late '90s).

But they always leave out a key fact: Chile is a resource-rich country that gets most of its export income from copper - much like Arabian countries get theirs from oil. It's a lot of money.

Copper has always papered over most of their problems - particuarly their disastrous privatized social security.

It's "private" in that the companies that run them reap 30-40% commissions. But when it comes time for retired Chileans to collect, guess who pays their ($150) pensions?

The government, using the copper revenues - which, luckily for Chile, remained in state hands. Their contributions? Gone to the Caymans.

I'm surprised Bitchy Mitchy hasn't brought up Social Security privatization yet. I guess he's waiting for Putin to stel the 2018 midterms for him.

[ancianita]

14. Privatization takes longer because we're much bigger. But the narrative arcs are weakening, the

more Americans see repeats here of historical precedents elsewhere.

We are now at the stage Chileans were at when Charles Koch's James M. Buchanan wrote the new constitution for that country, which forced a supermajority for every major economic vote.

Americans can forget about the Caymans, we're busy being the biggest tax haven and money launderer on the planet, learning from how privatizers like Pinochet and Putin have done it.

Deez nuts are moving their ill-gotten stashes, and I'm hoping the FBI follows ALL the money trails!

[sandensea]

15. And, dammit, all we can do, as Nigeria's Fela Kuti used to say, is look and laugh.

But we have to at least look. At least be informed (as you definitely are).

Here's hoping things change someday.

[ancianita]

16. I dig Fela Kuti. I like what you did...

[sandensea]

17. Same here.

Like many people, I discovered him in high school. Blew my mind.

As you can imagine, the successive dictatorships in Nigeria threw everything at him and the kitchen sink.

They jailed, beat and tortured him, took his money and posessions, burned down his house, raped his wives, and killed his mother.

Eager to please the oil-rich dictatorship, Thatcher denied him and his band asylum in Britain. One of the dictators that harassed him the most, Muhammad Buhari, was recently elected president of Nigeria on a "law-and-order" platform.

One can only look and laugh.

[ancianita]

18. Damn, he's tough. All this resource control dictatorship $ must've drawn Manafort + his buds. Whew.

For decades now, seems as if beta tests are what's happening across continents, testing out some globalizing template to nakedly take over land base resource control and just dump all pretense of inhabitants being self-determining.

That's what's happening here.

Every time, it comes down to how much FIGHT the people have in them to resist.

If you do it here by stealth, it takes the people a hell of a lot longer to become aware, and then to mobilize communications, unite and act.

I'm damn glad there's a lawyer army in the FBI that can at least map out the cyber network and money laundering networks.

But this may become the biggest a dragnet in history, and so it will be the longest.

[sandensea]

20. Globalization beta tests - dry runs, if you will. Great point!

I've long thought of Argentina that way, in particular - hence my interest.

While countries like Nigeria have more to loot, Argentina is useful in that, ethnically and to some extent culturally, it resembles the U.S. - but of course is small/medium enough not to cause too much of a ripple effect if it collapses.

It's also, unlike Europe, unimportant and almost peripheral - perfect location to test their theories.

What they didn't count on, as you pointed out, is the pushback. And they did, in a gentle but decisive way - through the Kirchners (Néstor and his wife/successor Cristina) from 2003 to 2015.

Debts were successfully renegotiated, the IMF was repaid and booted out, wages were raised, unions revitalized, social benefits expanded, and the privatized firms that had been hollowed out (not all were) were renationalized.

The reaction from Wall Street, London, and Washington was, to say the least, livid. Everything was thorown at them: media attacks, vulture fund lawsuits using bribed judges (Greasa, a Nixon appointee), and, of couse, covert support for the far-right opposition (as shown in Wikileaks).

Well, it worked. And now that the far right is in power (Macri, narrowly elected in 2015), the country's careening toward bankruptcy and riots again.

The IMF, Macri's biggest cheerleader, just had to bail him out with a $50 billion credit line - the biggest ever for the IMF. The catch? Deep budget cuts, sell off their Social Security trust fund, and labor "reform" (i.e. no benefits). And the rich? Even more tax cuts for them.

And then people wonder what the GOP would do here in the U.S. if given enough time. It's painful to watch, really.

[ancianita]

22. All the parameters you lay out are exactly why the Chicago Boyz at U of C did it. It's only painful

for US to watch, since the Koch-Buchanan-UC-Austrian society were cheering as Reagan and Thatcher appeared.

Buchanan warned globalists: "We should not be lulled by temporary electoral victories..." Much as he admired Reagan, he understood that even an ideologically driven president could succumb to majoritarian pressures. It got messy.

Even if Reagan turned out to be too deferential to public opinion, Austro-American economics gang were just happy that the Gipper fed widespread public skepticism and distrust in government's capacities, or the purity of political agents.

Dems have been playing whack-a-mole with them as they've bounced off Social Security and Medicare ever since, while they privatize wherever else they can seize/buy political influence -- pensions, any govt. instruments, college loans, even mortgages -- hell, the military, post WWII, had to be the model, right? for government literally selling out to capitalists.

Citizens United is the constitutional camel's nose that beat anything any other austerity plan in the world produced.

So now comes The Big Enemy -- Deep State. Invented so that the stealth economic policy revolution of Koch's-Buchanan's type wouldn't seem to be fighting social security recipients, veterans, farmers, educators, state and local officials and, when they gouged the economy after 2007, the housing industry.

Like Rachel said, they mean to exhaust us with this multi-pronged war of attrition. Only a Bigass organization sworn to preserve a constitution can stop them.

[sandensea]

25. I've never been religious; but at times like these I can't help but believe in this much at least:

That God works in mysterious ways.

Those people, the individuals and group you mentioned, are self-important egomanics with a sense of entitlement bigger than the World Trade Center they knocked down.

But they forget Murphy's Law: What can go wrong, will go wrong when one tries to create that much havoc.

And then there's God, with His mysterious ways. I really believe that (God, I hope I'm right!).

[appalachiablue]

19. Here's the guy, Carlos Menem. It's unfortunate that Chile is noted

often and other SA countries involved in RW plunder and destabilization since the 1970s like Argentina receive far less attention. In a quick search just now this article came up; I don't know how accurate it is. La vie..

"Argentina’s Ex-President Appears to Be Cursed," By his own acknowledgment, Carlos Menem brings bad luck, Atlas Obscura, April 19, 2017.



From left, Dr. Hans Blix, Dr. Fernando Collor de Mello, President of Brazil and Dr. Carlos Menem, President of Argentina, signing an agreement in December 1991.

Among the superstitious citizens of Argentina, one name keeps voices hushed: ex-president Carlos Menem, who ran the country from 1989 to 1999. Saying his name out loud—or worse, coming into physical contact with the man—can bring down sports teams, put people in the hospital, or even bring death. According to local legend, this real-life Voldemort, he-who-must-not-be-named Menem has a clear track record of suffering seriously bad luck, and many believe he brings those around him into his apparent curse.

As so many legends go, it’s tricky to pin down exactly when these beliefs began. Not only is Menem ill-remembered by many for the perception that he brought on Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, he’s also associated with leaving actual death in his wake. According to The Argentina Independent, shortly after Menem won the presidency in 1989, he appointed two new politicians to office; mere days after accepting the job the Minister of Economics died of a heart attack-car accident combination; months later the Minister of Health followed due to an aerial accident. More, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/carlos-menem-bad-luck-cursed

[sandensea]

21. As bad as Menem was though, Argentina's current president, Macri, is even worse.

Macri, very narrowly elected in late 2015 on a very GOP-like campaign (lots of racist dog-whistling), quickly moved to deregulate trade and finance, as well as give the rich yooge tax cuts - and most of it by decree.

The opposition objected; but after Macri threw over 20 of them in jail without charges (or with charges but no proof), they got the message real quick.

Since then, budget and trade deficits ballooned, the foreign debt doubled in just two years - and this April, the bubble finally popped.

Around $1 billion is now leaving the country a week (this would be like $30 billion a week leaving the U.S. - but with no Fed to paper over the losses, like it did in 2008). And amid the worst - and most sudden - recession in many years, Macri just signed another decree:

One giving the Army "law enforcement" powers - i.e. riot control powers for when things get hopeless, which could happen before the end of the year, as fast as things are deteriorating.

[ancianita]

23. The corporate-capitalist-military junta is the globalist governing framework. Our 5th column awaits.

[sandensea]

24. And there's no denying it - as much as some prefer to.

(understandably, as it's painful to think about)

Interesting times, as the Chinese say.

[appalachiablue]

26. Macri is bad news and fast wrecking the country I know..

[sandensea]

27. The don't call him the Argentine Trump for nothin'

Except that in Macri's case, the military refused to march for him in his vanity parade earlier this month.

The thieving brat offered them an 8% raise - amid 30% inflation (could be 40% by December).

[ancianita]

28. As for Trump's tariff damage to the farm/business sector, he's just throwing paper towels.

[sandensea]

29. To think that they gave him tons of support, money, and votes - thinking he'd be a Midas touch.

Instead, everything he touches, turns to Trump Steaks.

20 year-old Trump steaks. Unrefrigerated.

[ancianita]

30. Know who eats that? Hyenas.

[sandensea]

31. Great metaphor.

[ancianita]

32. You're killin' it.

[sandensea]

33. Why, thank you.

As Fela said, look and laugh.

[ancianita]

35. Probably the best vibe we can have.

[NCjack]

36. Reagan: "... and I told them the tax cuts would trickle down" nt

[sandensea]

37. I bet that one never gets old to them.

How could it possibly?

[appalachiablue]

34. So much Trump worship and global Strongman love as we discussed.

Cons and predators worldwide, whether influenced by economists at the Austrian School, Chicago School, Buchanan Virginia shi*t, it all means return to or continuation of elite run, ultra conservative, anti democratic and authoritarian societies. The lights of democracy seem to be flickering and dimming like I've never seen.



US, New Gilded Age, Part II.



Argentine President Macri and Trump.



Trump shakes hands with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and other leaders at Manilla Summit, Nov. 2017.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016211357

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-credulous-with-dictators-35a3f9f7d337/

[cp]

6. First time NRA quiet about something

And yes, thank you Rachel, where did that new rule concealing donors to the NRA come from?
The plot thickens.

[ancianita]

8. On the day her arrest was first announced, too.

[dalton99a]

13. Their silence is telling.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. If this plays out like one's worst fears

they are purely diabolical. Diablo! THE DEVIL!

We've had our society hijacked, living in fear and terror, our courts, public assets stolen by political process, our public Treasury bankrupted, we've cowered in fear not knowing what to do or where to hide, and it will take decades to clean it all up. All for money and ideology. A war on liberals by the sanctimonious. Phooey on that.