Manafort

The White House by Nancy OhanianThe worst-run White House ever? You bet! Just ask Susan Glasser at the New Yorker.

Almost everyone and every organization has a wikipedia page, right? But not James George (Jim) Jatras and not the American Institute in Ukraine which he claims to be Deputy Executive Director of. And not Anthony T Salvia, the Executive Director of the American Institute in Ukraine. (I did find an Anthony T La Salvia, who in 2014 was an unsuccessful Democratic primary judicial candidate in Maricopa County.

Manafort's prison has a Facebook page-- he's already the starI hope Manafort isn't the only Trump crony to find out. Perhaps they can build a prison for the whole lot of them eventually. With a golf course? I bet Manafort wasn't happy spending Fathers Day behind bars yesterday. Although I'm sure his ex-son-in-law was glad he was.

One of my neighbors asked me yesterday if Manafort will be allowed to keep dyeing his hair while he's in prison. I don't think so; isn't hair dye poisonous? He could poison himself or another inmate. I was once in an Afghan prison but my business partner, a relative of the king, got me out before I could settle into a routine or observe such about how the inmates groomed themselves.

I love it when someone puts politics in the context of history. Grayson does that a lot, which is why I look forward to his campaign e-mails (like this one about Cola Di Rienzo, a 14th Century Roman).

It's late in September, 2018 and you're at home in Omaha, on North 24th Street between Cuming and Burt neatly tucked between Creighton University and the McDonald's, glued to the TV screen. Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell have basically been covering nothing but the two Manafort trials that started in July and August. The whole country is talking about nothing else.

I don't think it would surprise anyone to hear that Paul Manafort-- Trump's original campaign manager and the likely Putin connection-- is going to prison. But Mueller seems to be ramping up the pressure on him, probably to turn on other, higher up Trump associates.

Many Republicans who had already seen the existential threat Trump was to their party saw May 3’s Indiana primary as the last place to stop him. Cruz hoped to force a contested convention by winning Indiana. The state’s unpopular governor, Mike Pence, who looked hard-pressed to win a second term, announced he was voting for Cruz. Trump beat him 587,710 (53.3%) to 404,332 (36.7%) and Cruz hoisted the white flag and withdrew from the battle for the nomination.

Manafort's crooked kidsStick with me on this... it'll all come together in a minute. Many years ago, an old, old friend of mine had a rental property in Malibu and he rented it to a young married couple. Eventually they stopped paying rent on time and then stopped paying rent altogether... and it got worse from there.

Back in July, we looked into Trump's ties to the Russian Mafia in general and Semyon Mogilevich-- Russia organized crime's boss of bosses-- in particular. Mogilevich is back in the news... this time tied to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Betsy Woodruff broke the story at the Daily Beast.