{"id":132988,"date":"2017-03-06T22:12:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T22:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/06\/the-death-of-a-thousand-slightly-dodgy-cuts.html"},"modified":"2017-03-06T22:12:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T22:12:16","slug":"the-death-of-a-thousand-slightly-dodgy-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/06\/the-death-of-a-thousand-slightly-dodgy-cuts.html","title":{"rendered":"The Death of a Thousand (Slightly Dodgy) Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the better possible explanations I've heard around Trump's behavior and actions regarding the whole Russian Entanglements Kerfuffle. <\/p>\n

In short: though there's not necessarily anything indictable (of Trump) in the Russian stuff, there are enough threads connected to enough other<\/i> business and personal messes in the past — perhaps none of them indictable, either, but certainly messy and dodgy and embarrassing — that he simply can't stand or afford to see uncovered.<\/p>\n

Trump is a man all about image and getting the respect he thinks he deserves. Anything that drags down that image and hurts that respect is anathema to him. Whether or not it's something he could be charged about, let alone impeached over, is beside the point, at least for him. It's not a matter of shame<\/i> (being forced to confront something acknowledged as wrong), it's a matter of face<\/i> (being seen by others to be less than what his self-image is about).<\/p>\n

Originally shared by +Andreas Schou<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So, okay.<\/p>\n

Let's say that you're Trump. You've spent your entire career in the vaguely mobbed-up world of New York real estate developers, and after being forcibly ejected from that by a series of bankruptcies, you enter the even more mobbed-up world of international financing for hotels intended for Saudi princelings and Russian oligarchs in countries with a lot of natural-resource wealth. <\/p>\n

No one will lend you money through normal channels because, again, whenever anyone lends you money you piss it all away on gold toilets and giant shit-fights with subcontractors, so you have to rely on things like Bayrock Associates, headquarted in Trump tower, which is basically just a weird giant money pipeline from Kazakhstan to New York. And in the midst of all of this, you decide that you're just going to stop paying taxes, not pay your contractors, and basically act like a sexual-harassing parody of a 1970s boss.<\/p>\n

It's not that Trump can't stand up to an investigation of his Russia ties, although that will produce an embarrassment of minor revelations immediately — Felix Sater, for instance, who's a minor Russian mafioso who provided financing for Trump projects in the 1990s. It's that Trump can't stand up to literally any investigation whatsoever<\/i>. Turn over literally any rock in Trump's life, and you'll find a weird squirming nest of maggots underneath it. <\/p>\n

There might be not much to the Russia story: the worst of it might be that Roger Stone was scheduling document dumps with Wikileaks. (He has already strongly implied that he was doing this.) But if you start pulling on any loose thread in that sweater, the entire thing is going to come unraveled and a giant pile of borderline criminality is going to come spilling out. <\/p>\n

I would be surprised if even Trump<\/i> has a strict accounting of where all the bodies he's buried in his career are. Which means that he has to prevent an investigation of Russia ties whether or not he's guilty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the better possible explanations I've heard around Trump's behavior and actions regarding the whole Russian Entanglements Kerfuffle. In short: though there's not necessarily anything indictable (of Trump) in the Russian stuff, there are enough threads connected to enough other business and personal messes in the past — perhaps none of them indictable, either, … Continue reading “The Death of a Thousand (Slightly Dodgy) Cuts”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133630,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/08\/more-on-the-comey-opening-statement.html","url_meta":{"origin":132988,"position":0},"title":"More on the Comey opening statement","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Jun-17 7:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"I know we'll be hearing more from the man himself very shortly. But I need to commend this article, from someone who knows Comey and knows about the law:https:\/\/lawfareblog.com\/initial-comments-james-comeys-written-testimonyThis quote in particular, regarding Trump's repeated inquiries in to FBI investigations, including when the FBI was going to get around to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/170607192937-03-comey-opening-statement-exlarge-1695B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/170607192937-03-comey-opening-statement-exlarge-1695B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/170607192937-03-comey-opening-statement-exlarge-1695B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":26157,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/07\/why-public-policy-surveys-are-frequently-a-bit-dodgy.html","url_meta":{"origin":132988,"position":1},"title":"Why public policy surveys are frequently a bit dodgy","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Feb-12 10:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because the questions, at best, are oversimplified, and, at worst, intentionally framed to deliver a result. And the Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline is a great example. #ddtbReshared post from +Susan Stone Embedded Link Do Americans Really Support Shipping Toxic Sludge (Strip-Mined from a Forest) Through a Major Aquifer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133634,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/08\/first-thoughts-on-the-comey-hearing.html","url_meta":{"origin":132988,"position":2},"title":"First thoughts on the Comey Hearing","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Jun-17 11:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"So I was able to watch about 95% of the hearing. My immediate take-aways ...... Public hearings are largely to let Senators posture in front of the press. That was on display here as usual, though they actually did seem to have actual questions that they wanted answered. I'd give\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14916,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/05\/31\/dof-and-the-surgery.html","url_meta":{"origin":132988,"position":3},"title":"DOF and the Surgery","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 31-May-09 10:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I mentioned a few weeks back that George, the \"Decrepit Old Fool\" who occasionally comments here (and whose blog I follow closely) was in hospital with a perforated colon. After some dodgy times, and some prolonged periods of not-up-to-blogging, he's chronicled the experience. Interesting stuff. Glad you're back on your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32779,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/12\/clan-of-the-flintstones.html","url_meta":{"origin":132988,"position":4},"title":"Clan of the Flintstones","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Mar-13 8:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've always thought the whole \"paleo-diet\" thing was a bit dodgy -- natural selection doesn't mean perfection, just satisfaction in order to pass on genes, and the while there's plenty wrong with our diets today, it's not necessarily because 50,000 years ago we were eating more grubs and fallen fruit\u00a0and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130708,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/20\/on-medieval-queens-and-diversity.html","url_meta":{"origin":132988,"position":5},"title":"On Medieval Queens and Diversity","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-May-16 3:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"In a world of a million interpretations of Shakespeare, a UKIP bigot getting snotty about a medieval queen's TV portrayal is dodgy to begin with. 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Ukipper blasts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}