Majorityrights News > Category: Jewish Diaspora

Western Spring, “Jez Turner at the JTMM – Talks of Three Essential Truths!”, 27 July 2017:

Jez Turner was the fifth guest speaker at the recent John Tyndall Memorial Meeting and in his speech he examines whether we have the ability or the time to awaken our people to the dangers that beset us? He goes on to develop his theme by presenting what he sees as three essential truths about which we should be aware; the truth of race; the truth of power and the truth about the agenda.

ez ends his speech by talking about the dedication, determination and resilience exhibited by most nationalists, qualities that John Tyndall epitomised, devoting as he did, his entire life to our cause.

Rob Goldstone, left, shown in contact with Trump prior to his son’s meeting with Goldstone that promised high level Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Oh, Wait. Maybe It Was Collusion.

New York Times, Op-Ed Contributors JOHN SIPHER and STEVE HALL, August 2, 2017:

Did the Trump campaign collude with Russian agents trying to manipulate the course of the 2016 election? Some analysts have argued that the media has made too much of the collusion narrative; that Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Kremlin-linked Russians last year was probably innocent (if ill-advised); or that Russian operatives probably meant for the meeting to be discovered because they were not trying to recruit Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump as agents, but mainly trying to undermine the American political system.

We disagree with these arguments. We like to think of ourselves as fair-minded and knowledgeable, having between us many years of experience with the C.I.A. dealing with Russian intelligence services. It is our view not only that the Russian government was running some sort of intelligence operation involving the Trump campaign, but also that it is impossible to rule out the possibility of collusion between the two.

The original plan drawn up by the Russian intelligence services was probably multilayered. They could have begun an operation intended to disrupt the presidential campaign, as well as an effort to recruit insiders to help them over time — the two are not mutually exclusive. It is the nature of Russian covert actions (or as the Russians would call them, “active measures”) to adapt over time, providing opportunities for other actions that extend beyond the original intent.

It is entirely plausible, for example, that the original Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers was an effort simply to collect intelligence and get an idea of the plans of the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate. Once derogatory information emerged from that operation, the Russians might then have seen an opportunity for a campaign to influence or disrupt the election. When Donald Trump Jr. responded “I love it” to proffers from a Kremlin-linked intermediary to provide derogatory information obtained by Russia on Hillary Clinton, the Russians might well have thought that they had found an inside source, an ally, a potential agent of influence on the election.

The goal of the Russian spy game is to nudge a person to step over the line into an increasingly conspiratorial relationship. First, for a Russian intelligence recruitment operation to work, they would have had some sense that Donald Trump Jr. was a promising target. Next, as the Russians often do, they made a “soft” approach, setting the bait for their target via the June email sent by Rob Goldstone, a British publicist, on behalf of a Russian pop star, Emin Agalarov.

They then employed a cover story — adoptions — to make it believable to the outside world that there was nothing amiss with the proposed meetings. They bolstered this idea by using cutouts, nonofficial Russians, for the actual meeting, enabling the Trump team to claim — truthfully — that there were no Russian government employees at the meeting and that it was just former business contacts of the Trump empire who were present.

When the Trump associates failed to do the right thing by informing the F.B.I., the Russians probably understood that they could take the next step toward a more conspiratorial relationship. They knew what bait to use and had a plan to reel in the fish once it bit.

While we don’t know for sure whether the email solicitation was part of an intelligence ploy, there are some clues. A month after the June meeting at Trump Tower, WikiLeaks, a veritable Russian front, released a dump of stolen D.N.C. emails. The candidate and campaign surrogates increasingly mouthed talking points that seemed taken directly from Russian propaganda outlets, such as that there had been a terrorist attack on a Turkish military base, when no such attack had occurred. Also, at this time United States intelligence reportedly received indications from European intelligence counterparts about odd meetings between Russians and Trump campaign representatives overseas.

Of course, to determine whether collusion occurred, we would have to know whether the Trump campaign continued to meet with Russian representatives subsequent to the June meeting. The early “courting” stage is almost always somewhat open and discoverable. Only after the Russian intelligence officer develops a level of control can the relationship be moved out of the public eye. John Brennan, the former director of the C.I.A., recently testified, “Frequently, people who go along a treasonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too late.”

Even intelligence professionals who respect one another and who understand the Russians can and often do disagree. On the Trump collusion question, the difference of opinion comes down to this: Would the Russians use someone like Mr. Goldstone to approach the Trump campaign? Our friend and former colleague Daniel Hoffman argued in this paper that this is unlikely — that the Russians would have relied on trained agents. We respectfully disagree. We believe that the Russians might well have used Mr. Goldstone. We also believe the Russians would have seen very little downside to trying to recruit someone on the Trump team — a big fish. If the fish bit and they were able to reel it in, the email from Mr. Goldstone could remain hidden and, since it was from an acquaintance, would be deniable if found. (Exactly what the Trump team is doing now.)

If the fish didn’t take the bait, the Russians would always have had the option to weaponize the information later to embarrass the Trump team. In addition, if the Russians’ first objective was chaos and disruption, the best way to accomplish that would have been to have someone on the inside helping. It is unlikely that the Russians would not use all the traditional espionage tools available to them.

However, perhaps the most telling piece of information may be the most obvious. Donald Trump himself made numerous statements in support of Russia, Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks during the campaign. At the same time, Mr. Trump and his team have gone out of their way to hide contacts with Russians and lied to the public about it. Likewise, Mr. Trump has attacked those people and institutions that could get to the bottom of the affair. He fired his F.B.I. director James Comey, criticized and bullied his attorney general and deputy attorney general, denigrated the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and assails the news media, labeling anything he dislikes “fake news.” Innocent people don’t tend to behave this way.

The overall Russian intent is clear: disruption of the United States political system and society, a goal that in the Russian view was best served by a Trump presidency. What remains to be determined is whether the Russians also attempted to suborn members of the Trump team in an effort to gain their cooperation. This is why the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is so important. It is why the F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation, also quietly progressing in the background, is critical. Because while a Russian disruption operation is certainly plausible, it is not inconsistent with a much darker Russian goal: gaining an insider ally at the highest levels of the United States government.

In short, and regrettably, collusion is not off the table.

John Sipher (@john_sipher), a former chief of station for the C.I.A., worked for over 27 years in Russia, Europe and Asia and now writes for The Cipher Brief and works for CrossLead, a consulting company. Steve Hall (@StevenLHall1) is a former C.I.A. chief of Russian operations and a CNN national security analyst.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

European Outlook, “Propaganda”, 31 July 2017:

By Bill Bailie #44 August 2017

Propaganda

Technology has revolutionised communications. Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg and changed the world. Benito Mussolini led the March on Rome to sieze power. And, in the sixties, we relied on street corner meetings and literature. Today, such primitive methods have been overtaken by the Internet.

A young Bill Baillie campaigning for John Bean’s British National Party in the 1964 general election.

We were not an insular nationalist party, we believed in European solidarity and social justice. I went overseas in 1965 and when I came home in 1970 we had been taken over by the National Front and our progressive policies had been dumped. I therefore joined Union Movement and embraced Oswald Mosley’s vision of ‘Europe a Nation’.

Social media is the modern way of communicating and video platforms such as Youtube are very effective. Donald Trump used Twitter and Facebook extensively in his presidential campaign and so did Emmanuel Macron in France.

Newspapers and magazines are expensive to produce and distribute but websites are affordable. We can reach more people on the Internet than we did in the old days by putting leaflets through letterboxes or selling newspapers on street corners. Competing with the mass media is obviously an unequal challenge but having discovered the truth it’s our duty to encourage people to think for themselves and reject media brainwashing.

Newspapers, radio and television dominate public opinion but we can fight back by using the Internet. The State uses anti-terrorist legislation to silence its enemies but we can stay within the law by avoiding insulting or threatening language.

Ten years ago immigration was a taboo subject and only the lunatic-left talked about a “crisis of capitalism.” Today, these ideas have gone mainstream and you don’t have to be a political party in order to have an opinion. So, carry on blogging and posting on Facebook and Twitter. Let our voices be heard.

A Garden Green by William Harris,
first published in ‘Lodestar’ Winter 1986

Each year brings thousands of American tourists to Britain, and it is clear that many of them are seeking something the do not posses in their own continent. This, I suggest, is a past: their own past forged by their own ancestors, and not the pre-Colombian past of the Indian, which is the only true ancient thing they have. They must travel all these hundreds of miles in order to find their roots, be they of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman descent.

As so much nonsense is talked about Britain’s ‘mixture of races’, it is worth quoting the words of Brian Branson in ‘The Lost Gods of England’. In his chapter ‘Who were the English?’ he mentions these ethnic groups, adding “But none of these inter-breedings was what might be called in genetic terms ‘a violent out-cross’ such as would have been the case if Britain had been successfully invaded by an armada of Chinese, or Red Indians or African Bushmen. Apart from any alteration in physical appearance that would have befallen the new Island Race under such circumstances, one has only to suppose a pagoda in Canterbury, a totem pole in Trafalgar Square, and rock paintings in the Cheddar Gorge to imagine the cultural changes that would have ensued.” He concludes that “the mongrelism of the English turns out to be more apparent than real.” That was first published in 1957, before the minarets of the mosque loomed over the trees in Regent’s Park.

Names are among the most ancient and lasting monuments in a culture, particularly those given to natural features in the landscape. In Britain they are usually Celtic, the Celts being the earliest of the above ethnic groups. The prefix ‘Pen’ for ‘head’ or ‘headland’ and the many instances of the name ‘Avon’, which means simply ‘river’ are two of the most obvious.

The names of our pubs are often far older than the buildings they adorn, and they tell us much. ‘The George’, and ‘The Green Man’, for instance, take us back to the traditional Mummers’ Play of St George and the Turkish knight, and to a character in the Morris Dance, ‘Jack in the Green’. The mummers would usually herald their appearance by announcing “Here come I”. . . and in all these traditions, including that of traditional dance and song which is inseparable from it, there are a number of folk-heroes who emerge: St George, Robin Hood and Maid Marion, King Arthur, Hereward the Wake, Dick Whittington, Dick Turpin, Nelson and Lord Collingwood. The villains (all of whom are often cut down by St George in the course of the mummers’ play) include: Prince Valentine, Captain Rover, Turkey Snipe, Little John, Bonaparte and Sambo. The last prompts me to remark that the blackening of faces (so upsetting to the susceptibilities of the liberal left of today), is probably far older than the ‘Black and White Minstrels’, or the minstrels who used to perform on seaside piers. There are accounts of wassailers or masqueraders blackening their faces, and the ‘Giant of Salisbury’ (a huge effigy , which used to be carried in all important processions in the city, which is now in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire museum) was found to have had his face blackened at some stage in the past, before he was ‘cleaned up’. ‘Morris’, of course, is thought to derive from ‘Moorish’ so, like the Mummers’ Play, it may date from the time of the Crusades.

After St George in the play has felled the Turkish knight, a doctor is called for, to ‘cure’ him. He is often played by a small boy dressed in a top hat and frock coat far too big for him and (in the version from Camborne, Cornwall) he says:

“I can cure the itch, the specs and the gout -
If there’s nine devils, I can kick ten out.”

He always cures the wounded knight so that the audience can then enjoy another bout of fighting but, in fact, his origins go back to the idea of death and resurrection which is the basis of most of the world’s religions.

READ MORE...

In Tanstaafl’s latest theoretical fail:

The White Race and its Discontents:

He proffers:

1) “A civilization and its culture are racial constructs – the bottom up, grass-roots instincts of the masses largely modulated and moderated by the elite.”

This is a desperate and lame attempt to ignore the better understanding of social consructionism that I have had to explain time and again, because right wingers cannot adjust to the fact that they are reacting to a misrepresentation of the term.

They refuse to deploy the exercise of trying the word “mere” before “social construct” and observing that if you need that word, then it is Cartesian and not a concept that you would apply to something substantive like race.

The White race as a social construct - not merely, but substantively - already IS from the ground up and that, as a social construct, is a MUCH better way to look at it than the way that Tanstaafl says is THE way to look at the matter, i.e., that “civilization and culture are racial constructs” - that doesn’t even make logical sense (coming from a man who accused me of having poor logic): If he is emphasizing, as he does, the causal and deterministic aspect of our inheritance then why call it a “racial construct”?  ..call it a byproduct, perhaps..

But he won’t go with a proper understanding of social constructionism because he is beholden to his reactionary audience.

It is better to allow for our individual agency and contributions by talking in terms of social construct - it emphasizes our social responsibility, interdependence, degree of independence and most importantly, our people as central outlook and framework, not our subhuman nature.

Tanstaafl does not do this because he continually tries to suck Hitler to life again, desperately trying to make his subhuman ideology relevant again.

Social constructionism, properly understood, not only begins with the proper outlook, from our people, but does so in such a way that already begins with instinct and unconscious doings - we talk in terms of the agentive capacity to attribute how things count when they are on the more causative side of the spectrum. But they are never, mere constructs.

2) To illustrate how it is that Tanstaafl can’t get over his wish to try to redeem Hitler and make him relevant again: in the context of Trump’s speech in Poland, Tan tries the old, “they’re going to call you a Nazi anyway.”

No they aren’t - especially not if you apply agency as a social constructionist. It’s easier as a Pole, perhaps, to say I/we had nothing to do with Nazism; but it is not that hard for subsequent generations of Germans to reject the attribution of Nazism either.

3) In another example of how he wants to apply natural causality and tie our hands to passivity in regard to how the Jews say things count, Tan cites the infamous Susan Sontag quote - “White people are the cancer of the earth”  - in its full context; relishing the opportunity to attack one of my most cherished observations on behalf of our European people - i.e. that the Hippies were about midtdasein, Being amidst our people for White males as opposed to say, the endless war mongering of Hitler or the corporations and their draft into Vietnam - by saying that Sontag was endorsing the “freak-out” in order to promote sheer insubordination to older generations.

Well, that is how (((Sontag))) might try to say the hippies counted, that is NOT how we should say they counted. For us the rebellion of midtdasein against sheer war mongering could not have been a more relevant and authentic motive.

....tasked with out-Koshering other goyim alum and to put the hit on them gangster style for being in/convenient goyim to the kosher mob. From our point of view, we can be glad that Bannon’s (((Paleocon))) misdirection into his (((Neo-Reaction))) is being throttled by a more distinctly (thereby didactic) Kosher and neo-liberal effort.

Scaramucci blanks like a hootchi.

First, some commentary on the situation by Kumiko:

Death match, Maxine Waters versus Steven Mnuchin.

A number of Cernovich’s people are getting subpoena’d now too.

He’s on Twitter this morning saying he’s worried he’ll be next.

All the FVEY accounts are indicating “LOL we’re coming for all of you.”

The collapse is going to be good fun.

Why would Cernovich be subpoena’d?

Because Putin, quite seriously.

It’s encouraging that this has started to bleed into the Alt-Lite.

Since they thought that everyone had forgotten about them.

It forms part of the logic of why we have actively tried to keep our audience from falling into that garbage when it started up.

All of these people will go down with the ship, because that’s how it works.

The only way to not get taken down is to just not be there.

“I’m just a blogger, surely I can be a grey vector of Active Measures and be left alone, right?”

Yeah no.

The only they were going to escape would have been if Trump had swiftly crushed the entire US intelligence community within a few months of entering office.

But these fluffy guys didn’t think about that, and Trump was incompetent, so now it’s all catching up to them.

There’s still chances for them to squirm out, if Trump starts a firing spree before Graham’s bill passes.

But it’s looking like they won’t make it.

Trump is behind schedule, since he fired Priebus today, but then he realized that Scaramucci doesn’t care about anything and wants to actually fight Bannon.

So they are wasting precious time because Trump didn’t realize that Scaramucci only wanted to enter the White House so he could destroy Priebus and Bannon.

....because they screwed him in a business deal back n 2016.

Now he’s coming back pure ITALIAN BOSS.

...and now they are all falling over each other to try to ‘calm that down’... wasting precious time.

That’s why you see Raheem Kassam and Cernovich now trying to rally the base against Scaramucci “or it’s all over” according Kassam.

If you want to be rid of Bannon’s Neo-Reactionary misdirection into counter-Jihad Paleoconservatism, you have to love the hit Salabucci is putting on him.

Salabucci is just there to kill two guys.

He’s just some guy Trump knew from some business thing, who used to also go on Fox News and give financial commentary.

He spent the whole electoral cycle accusing Trump of being a protectionist bastard, until he realized Trump could be induced to make it worth his while; so he quietly went pro-Trump, sold off his business, and then asked to join the Trump admin.

That’s when Priebus and Bannon blocked him, saying he was on an agenda, and so it meant Scaramucci had divested himself for no reason. At this stage I assume he decided to go for the revenge plot, and this may be it.

So he becomes a factor in the chaos. ...since Trump is an idiot and brought him in despite the fact that he was a time bomb.

That’s why Sean Spicer resigned, since he refused to work under Scaramucci, since he knew Scaramucci is there to wreck things.

Then Scaramucci immediately came in and destroyed Priebus as Spicer likely predicted, lol.

And is now attacking Bannon, claiming that “I’m here to serve America, unlike Bannon who is here to suck his own dick.”

Anyway, yeah, this is why day to day politics can be fun.

On the other side, Trump just ruined his senate majority.

In the process of trying to pass the Obamacare repeal, Trump threatened to economically attack Alaska if Murkowski wouldn’t vote ‘Yes.’

In reaction, Murkowski doubled down on opposing Trump, and voted ‘no.’

So Pence entered the chamber again to try to break the tie.

But then Collins and MCCAIN defected too.

....and the whole chamber erupted as McCain tilted his chin up.

...and the whole fucking thing imploded.

So now Trump is in a position where he is just getting nothing done.

That’s what Kumiko had to say. Here’s what The New Nationalist has to say. They consider themselves “Third Position,” which means that they have some things right - like an eye on the J.Q. and some right wing perfidy. However, they remain insufficiently emancipated from the right wing and are unstable as a result, resorting to some wild speculation where socialization would be corrective.

The New Nationalist, “Move Over Trump, There’s a New Sheriff in Town: Mad Tony ‘The Mooch’ Scaramucci”, 28 July 2017:

Trumpian apologists are doing cartwheels and backflips trying to explain away the bizarre behavior of the administration’s latest “communication director,” one Anthony Scaramucci, also known as “The Mooch.” Sean Spicer was a piker compared to this character. Predictably, The Mooch, 53, is a Goldman Sachs alum and hedge fund manager who boasts “29 years on Wall Street.” He is a member of the nefarious Council on Foreign Relations and, on June 19, became senior VP and chief strategy officer for the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

During his first week on the job as Trump’s chief mouthpiece, Scaramucci engaged the president’s drama squad in a WWWF-style brahaha, culminating in an interview during which he declared, “I’m not Steve Bannon. I’m not trying to suck my own cock. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.” Classy.

In another rambling interview, The Mooch vowed to hunt down the White House leakers. He suggested that embattled White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus would be fired if he leaks and said he was incensed that Priebus “cock-blocked” him for six months from getting a position in Trump’s administration. He also called Priebus “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic” and seemed to imply that some White House staffers may have committed a felony by leaking sensitive financial information about Scaramucci, even though his financial disclosure form was publicly available. It is also interesting that The Mooch had nothing bad to say about globalists Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn and Dina Powell during his rant.

Sampling of the Mooch’s claims:

         
          The 6 most unusual quotes from Anthony Scaramucci’s CNN interview

No sensible leader would turn such a man loose. No sensible leader would be undercutting his own attorney general six months into his presidency. His Secretary of State Tillerson is rumored to have had enough. There is every indication that the Trumpian executive branch is ungovernable; and worse, governed by tweet. Just about anybody within the sistema will distance themselves soon enough. Former media supporter Breibart is playing a role by doing exactly that.

It is just a matter of time before steps are taken to remove him. The New Nationalist (TNN) theorizes the trigger will be a market swoon, possibly triggered by a faux pas from “Red Queen” Donald himself. This happens after the cognescenti are convinced the rigged “markets” are bulletproof against Trumpian buffoonery and skullduggery. But alas, that will prove not to be the case.

This further reinforces our post-election theory regarding Trump mafioso and oligarch-like appointments. This is a devious and traitorous Trojan Horse operation designed to deliberately take what’s left of the American system down. This is the end game of a multi-generation national demolition project.

Trump’s role is as closer of that project. Unfortunately, few understand that, even his among his opponents. In fact, his Democratic opponents like Hillary and Obama are in on it. Readers need to jettison the erroneous Hanlon’s Razor, which says, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” There is true evil and malice at loose in the world and they operate at the highest level.

Although at this juncture this feels like watching red paint dry, it’s anything but. This crisis phase, when it erupts, should last about six weeks, ending in total breakdown and chaos. The moving parts, such as a summer of urban turmoil (Baltimore and Ferguson multiplied) are in place. The neo-feudal plans of the Crime Syndicate and their international bankster bosses are in place. The police state and Gulag system have been tested and are in place. Human harvesting implementation was test run in Haiti and is in place. Human terrain intelligence for every person in America, if not the world, is in place, locked, loaded.

New Observer, “Orban: Hungary is a “Refuge for Europeans,” and Uses Tax Money to Boost Birthrate”, 24 July 2017:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has announced that his nation will “remain a place where Western European Christians will always be able to find security”—and that his government is using taxes on multinational companies to fund social policies to spur families to have more children.

Speaking at a cultural festival in Baile Tusnad, Romania, Orbán also said that the European Union, together with Open Society founder—and Hungarian Jew—George Soros was seeking a “new, mixed, Muslimized Europe.”

He went on to say that Hungary’s border fences, supported by other Central European countries, “will block the EU-Soros effort to increase Muslim migration into Europe.”

While Hungary opposed taking in migrants “who could change the country’s cultural identity,” Orban said under his leadership, Hungary would remain a place where “Western European Christians will always be able to find security.”

He also said that Hungary’s opposition parties were no match for his government, and that he would win the next election in April 2018.

“In the upcoming campaign, first of all we have to confront external powers,” Orban said.

“We have to stand our ground against the Soros mafia network and the Brussels bureaucrats. And, during the next nine months, we will have to fight against the media they operate.”

Recent legislation in Hungary seeks to close or expel the Budapest-based Central European University, founded by Soros in 1991. There are also new rules about non-governmental organizations funded at least partly from abroad.

Orban reiterated his charge that Soros-funded NGOs want to weaken Hungary’s security with their advocacy for asylum-seekers and said Hungary had managed to stop the “migrant invasion” with razor-wire fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia.

In the speech, broadcast by Hungarian state media, Orban repeated his claim that the EU leadership was encroaching on member states’ rights and trying to apply policies, such as increased immigration, which he said were opposed by most Europeans.

Orban said Poland, which is under pressure from the EU because of attempts to put its Supreme Court under political control, had replaced Hungary as the target of the EU’s “chief inquisitor,” whom he identified as European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans.

“The main target of the inquisition, the example of national governance to be weakened, destroyed and broken is Poland,” Orban said, vowing to defend the Polish government. “Hungary will use every legal possibility in the European Union to be in solidarity with the Poles.”

Finally, Orban said Hungary’s low birth rate made the country an “endangered species,” and that the government was using taxes on multinational companies to fund social policies that would spur families to have more children.

The New Republic, “Trump’s Russian Laundromat” July 2017:

How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.

In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot in the Soviet Army—his specialty had been shooting down Americans over North Vietnam—he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin wasn’t hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as “Little Odessa” for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.

A monument to celebrity and conspicuous consumption, the tower was home to the likes of Johnny Carson, Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren. Its brash, 38-year-old developer was something of a tabloid celebrity himself. Donald Trump was just coming into his own as a serious player in Manhattan real estate, and Trump Tower was the crown jewel of his growing empire. From the day it opened, the building was a hit—all but a few dozen of its 263 units had sold in the first few months. But Bogatin wasn’t deterred by the limited availability or the sky-high prices. The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin.

If the transaction seemed suspicious—multiple apartments for a single buyer who appeared to have no legitimate way to put his hands on that much money—there may have been a reason. At the time, Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end real estate, which offered an ideal vehicle to launder money from their criminal enterprises. “During the ’80s and ’90s, we in the U.S. government repeatedly saw a pattern by which criminals would use condos and high-rises to launder money,” says Jonathan Winer, a deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration. “It didn’t matter that you paid too much, because the real estate values would rise, and it was a way of turning dirty money into clean money. It was done very systematically, and it explained why there are so many high-rises where the units were sold but no one is living in them.” When Trump Tower was built, as David Cay Johnston reports in The Making of Donald Trump, it was only the second high-rise in New York that accepted anonymous buyers.

Semion Mogilevich.

In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.” A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the “boss of bosses” of the Russian mafia. At the time, Mogilevich—feared even by his fellow gangsters as “the most powerful mobster in the world”—was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America.

In 1987, on his first trip to Russia, Trump visited the Winter Palace with Ivana. The Soviets flew him to Moscow—all expenses paid—to discuss building a luxury hotel across from the Kremlin. Maxim Blokhin/TASS

Full article at New Republic

        Rubrics:

- Trump made his first trip to Russia in 1987, only a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

- Throughout the 1990s, untold millions from the former Soviet Union flowed into Trump’s luxury developments and Atlantic City casinos.

- Trump Taj Mahal paid the largest fine ever levied against a casino for having “willfully violated” anti-money-laundering rules.

- The influx of Russian money did more than save Trump’s business from ruin—it set the stage for the next phase of his career. By 2004, to the outside world, it appeared that Trump was back on top after his failures in Atlantic City. That January, flush with the appearance of success, Trump launched his newly burnished brand…

- Russians spent at least $98 million on Trump’s properties in Florida—and another third of the units were bought by shadowy shell companies.

- In 2013, police burst into Unit 63A of Trump Tower and rounded up 29 suspects in a $100 million money-laundering scheme.

- In April 2013, a little more than two years before Trump rode the escalator to the ground floor of Trump Tower to kick off his presidential campaign, police burst into Unit 63A of the high-rise and rounded up 29 suspects in two gambling rings.

        Concluding paragraphs:

Semion Mogilevich, the Russian mob’s “boss of bosses,” also declined to respond to questions from the New Republic. “My ideas are not important to anybody,” Mogilevich said in a statement provided by his attorney. “Whatever I know, I am a private person.” Mogilevich, the attorney added, “has nothing to do with President Trump. He doesn’t believe that anybody associated with him lives in Trump Tower. He has no ties to America or American citizens.”

Back in 1999, the year before Trump staged his first run for president, Mogilevich gave a rare interview to the BBC. Living up to his reputation for cleverness, the mafia boss mostly joked and double-spoke his way around his criminal activities. (Q: “Why did you set up companies in the Channel Islands?” A: “The problem was that I didn’t know any other islands. When they taught us geography at school, I was sick that day.”) But when the exasperated interviewer asked, “Do you believe there is any Russian organized crime?” the “brainy don” turned half-serious.

“How can you say that there is a Russian mafia in America?” he demanded. “The word mafia, as far as I understand the word, means a criminal group that is connected with the political organs, the police and the administration. I don’t know of a single Russian in the U.S. Senate, a single Russian in the U.S. Congress, a single Russian in the U.S. government. Where are the connections with the Russians? How can there be a Russian mafia in America? Where are their connections?”

Two decades later, we finally have an answer to Mogilevich’s question.

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Maplewood, lower left, highlighted in red. It is manifesting “hoodie” sprawl amidst what was exclusively middle and upper class White suburbia - e.g., Short Hills and the west side of Montclair, along the Watchung Mountains - White areas uncomfortably juxtaposed to what would be shockingly black areas for those unprepared for the transformation that encroaches: Newark, Irvington and East Orange have been predominantly black since the riots of the 1960’s.