A young Jared Kushner-looking Donald Trump with Ivana at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, ca. 1987. “Whistling Past The Russian Cemetery”
by Don Clasen
July 17, 2017
“I have sat at this desk for 130 commentaries and begged that this be understood for what it is. Our willingness to abide the control of this country by Donald Trump and the mercenary gang with which he has surrounded himself, was and is and will be in reality, our willingness to abide the control of this country by another country. We are at this moment in a position akin to where our Founding Fathers were, literally under the control of the leaders of a foreign power who have placed at the head of the legal and military forces of this continent a man who is beholden not to us, but to them.”
-Keith Olbermann, “Trump Will Not Be Cleared”
The daily drip, drip, drip of revelations coming out about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia are certainly testing everybody. While his rabid supporters are annoyed by it all and swallow his ridiculous claim it’s “history’s biggest witch hunt,” the media and the rest of the world watch it all unfold with a mixture of horror and fascination. Why? Because it’s dawning upon civil society that our 45th President is a long time money launderer for a “Russian” mob more tied into Tel Aviv than Moscow.
I myself drew attention to Trump’s long-held mob connections in the first article I wrote about him last year.[i] But the real yeoman’s work here is being done by original researchers who are digging very deep. Chief among them is an article that just broke the other day in New Republic by Craig Unger entitled “Trump’s Russian Laundromat.” A more blunt article by Veterans Today entitled “How Trump Became the Russian Mafia’s Bitch” gives a more complete and street level accounting. These two featured, must-read articles will tell you all you need to know about Donald Trump, Inc. and why he ran for President.
The Trump Version of “Family Values”
Nothing spells out the danger to our country and the world quite like the role of the Trump cog in a vast mobster wheel. All his incompetence, vulgar behavior, silly tweeting, blatant materialism and the rest pale in comparison. The same goes for the brutality and austerity of the Republican policy agenda. Likewise the hostility of his appointees to the agencies they now head. The danger of organized crime strip-mining anything of value out of the lives of the American people, leaving us broken and bleeding, is a clear and present danger now.
I hope I don’t need to explain to you what’s wrong with “mobster family values,” but in light of the constant, in-your-face, upside-down version of reality this crew keeps throwing at us nowadays, maybe I have to. Mobsters are criminals. This means that they’re not just ordinary sinners like you and me, but ones so bad that society needs to either quarantine them in prison or execute them just so the rest of us can live in peace.
You see, although all crimes are sins, not all sins are crimes. I know it might be difficult for Church people and right-wingers to keep two interrelated concepts in the mind at the same time, but it’s necessary all the same. We are so used to a “sin is sin is sin” mentality when it comes to evangelism that maybe we just don’t think about it very deeply. I hear it reflected here in LA Christian radio all the time—“Come to Jesus [quickly, before the Rapture] and He’ll forgive your sin,” as if all you’ve ever committed is one (neglecting, rejecting Him). Well that may well be the fatal one but it’s still bad philosophy and very confusing to a world trying to figure out how to practically respond to the vast range of sin natures including deliberate criminal behavior.
A Real Visionary Kind of Guy
Candidate Trump in his RNC acceptance speech last summer just had to right out of the gate, latch on to the overriding problem of “Law and Order” in America, don’t you know? Inveterate demagogue that he is, he screeched that the country was full of “attacks on our police,” (in spite of all the attacks by police on the public in recent years), “terrorism” in our cities, “violence in our streets and…chaos [no less] in our communities.”
Maybe Steve Bannon who at least partially wrote this speech had been reading too many of the Left Behind novels. Certainly the picture painted is right in line with his obsession with the ridiculous “Fourth Turning” theory of history, complete with expositions on saecula, ekpyrosis and other terms you don’t need to know nor ever asked about. Think New Age visualization theory and Apocalyptic wish fulfillment applied to the Hindu view of history as fatalistically circular. He apparently believes we’re heading into the destructive phase of an 8000 year cycle and that’s why he’s there, merrily dismantling our government and selling it off for parts to help the sacred process along. Just what those jobs-starved Heartlanders voted for.
You should not be aligned with such people. They are cursing the land. Right in the Introduction of my book American Babylon, American Antichrist I explain why attempting to induce the Apocalypse is extremely presumptuous, a terrible witness, and bad Bible prophecy philosophy. (Sad too. You see, even I am expanding my vocabulary to include Trumpisms).
It shouldn’t surprise us then that this very dark picture Trump painted in his speech has next to nothing to do with present reality (as if he cares anyhow). According to FBI statistics, crime in this country is at a 40 year low, but the Demagogue-in-Chief just had to talk as if the current gang warfare in South Side Chicago was the norm for everywhere else. Hence the “law ‘n order” theme which he reprised in his Inaugural Address as well, a day he later signed an official proclamation over, declaring it “National Day of Patriotic Devotion.” Nothing ominous about any “Dear Leader” thing there.
Why? Because for people like Trump and Leona Helmsley, “law and order” like taxes, are “only [for the] little people.”[ii] That is, they’re only for people who can’t afford high-priced lawyers, bribing judges and buying politicians, something Trump has been often heard to brag about. Even more to the point, it’s the relatively-petty crimes the poor commit that count. The really big ones along with the whopper lies they tell about them, are reserved for the rich to get away with as the mobster rap sheets in the articles above amply testify to.
We’re Being Persecuted!!!
Gee whiz, you would wonder why in God’s Name would the Church of Jesus Christ want to be identified with such a wrecking ball of a man and his sadistic party in the eyes of a watching world? When the man who “has more respect for women” than anyone couldn’t persuade Mika Brzezinski to show up at Mar-a-Lago,[iii] he just had to Tweet out in his usual classy way:
This particular one was so bad that even that coarse tabloid the New York Daily News was embarrassed.
Mika in discussing the flap with fiancée Joe and guests the next day (June 30) said of fellow-Republican Trump that he,
“appears to have a fragile, childlike, impetuous ego that we’ve seen over and over again, especially with women. It’s like he can’t take it…The White House claims that we attack him. No, we report on his lies. We are upset when he doesn’t tell the truth and he bullies people. It’s true. We sometimes mock him and have fun with things like we did with President Obama and his bowling. And we were having fun with the Time cover because it was hilarious that anybody would have their country club put up fake magazine covers…
I knew in real time that the President would be tweaked by that and I thought oh boy, there’s going to be a response. And think about that. It is unbelievably alarming that this President is so easily played..by a cable news host! Now what is that saying to our allies? What is that saying to our enemies?”
That’s a good question. What would he do in a real crisis, such as maybe a provocation from Kim Jong-Un? Nuke North Korea? Start the Four Horsemen nuclear war (Rev 6)? Where is there warrant in the Bible to “do evil that good [the Second Coming] might come” from it (Ro 3:8)? You can call it presumption, but not faith.
Perhaps the question ought to be, How is it that so many professing Christians nowadays are so easily played? The naivete and willful ignorance (Isa 56:10; Ro 16:17,18; II Pe 3:5) is just stunning. On Monday, July 10 a group of 27 pastors led by Rodney Howard-Browne of “holy laughter” “fame” attended a meeting with the White House Liason Office when they were invited in to see the President. (I would probably have counselled them to read Proverbs 23:1-3 before they did.) After a week of brutal pounding for the Morning Joe flap plus all the other crises this man piles up (I can’t keep track of them all), Howard-Browne described the President as “happy and joking,” and the experience as both humbling and surreal.
Well, I can agree with the surreal part. Johnnie Moore, a former Liberty University official told CNN that Trump was “in good spirits…as strong and focused as I have ever seen him…as if he was entirely above the fray.” Well of course. A complete lack of conscience does have its advantages at times.
Thus did this Praetorian Guard of Evangelical prayer warriors gather around to pray for the beleaguered Dear Leader, that he be strong in the face of this never-ending assault by the Lame Stream/ Fake News/ Enemy-of-the-People media. Howard-Browne on his Facebook page breathlessly predicted, “We are going to see another great spiritual awakening!” Right. A Mr. Louis Rainero commented without a hint of irony, “Mockers and scorners have been around since the beginning of time. The Bible describes their end…God bless you President Trump!!” A Tammie Rogers said, “I get goose bumps thinking what God is going to do.” So do I, but I would probably characterize it more like a crawling of the skin (Rev 17:16 ff).
The Conquest of the Trivial
In time, the release of the Don Jr.-related emails proved that just about everyone in Operation Trump had been lying for over a year and colluding with a rival (if not adversarial) power to throw an election. So Trump went looking for a softball pitcher to help with the fallout, and there are few in the bullpen quite as good as Pat Robertson. It’s amazing how far a little flattery of right wing ignoramuses on macro economics, foreign policy, the nature of Zionism and so much else can go. Not to mention the allure of “having men’s persons (stature, status) in admiration because of advantage” (rubbing shoulders with power—Jude 1:16).
Talk about no hint of irony. The headline to the interview on the CBN website was, “President Trump to CBN’s Pat Robertson: Putin Would Have Been Happier With Clinton.” But of course. Likening a Russian leader to Hitler and blaming him for her own oversight of the Ukrainian coup d’etat is just the way to signal warm future relations. Not to mention all of Russ,ia’s efforts to contact Hillary’s camp of course. You certainly can’t accuse the Trumpster of a lack of audacity. It’s a tactic his Talmudic Zen master Roy Cohn taught him, that whenever someone nails you to the wall, you immediately accuse them of the very thing you’re guilty of.
As far as Putin and Russia were concerned, the venerable CBN founder hit the President with hard questions like, “Can he be trusted,?” and “What does he want, what’s his game?” which gave Trump carte blanche to riff on the first thought to come passing through his hyperbolic brain. Nothing about a 30-year long labyrinthian network[iv] of Russian/ Zionist mobsters (who want very bad to overthrow Putin) and laundering their ill-gotten gains in human trafficking, drugs, extortion, fraud, arms sales, stolen oil, nuclear weapons, gambling, etc.—you know, all those (mafia) family values—through a sitting US President. No, nothing to see here either.
But of course.
O so insightfully Robertson did say though, “There’s two pieces of legislation the American people are anxious to see put through. One, this iniquitous [!] Obama Care has got to go and be replaced. Number two, we’ve got to have a tax cut, especially for small business, corporate tax…” None of this was true. According to a USA poll in late June on the Senate’s replacement bill, only 12% of the public approved of it while over half wanted to keep and fix Obama Care.[v] And another tax cut (the biggest in history according to Trump) will do little to improve the economy but cause working families to keep falling behind. Again, you should read my free chapter on how the US economy really works if you want a quick education on what’s wrong with right-wing economics.
Robertson was quite effusive with his Presidential praise later on. “They have got it together. The White House is functioning incredibly well!” But of course. The evidence just keeps pouring in every day.[vi] “The President is doing incredible things.”
Indeed he has if you like the conquest of the trivial. He has blocked federal abortion funding for foreign NGOs, de-funded Planned Parenthood, rolled back transgender bathroom privileges and made it easier for non-profits to raise money for (right wing) political candidates. He even promised an end to the assault on Christmas. “You will be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again very soon,” to the gushing delight of the grand old man. I feel better already.
Just beside himself, like an older version of Jeff Sessions
And oh, that’s right. He also appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Court, guaranteeing Citizens United will not be struck down, insuring lots more dirty foreign money in our elections; appointed Kris Kobach, the Darth Vader of voter suppression to be Vice Chair of the bipartisan Presidential Commission on “Election Integrity”; stated that he wants to make it easier to sue journalists; caused G-20 nations to ignore us; reinstated supply-side economic theory to finish the job of looting the American economy; used his Office to expand his business empire regardless of national security conflicts; and oh yes, once asked why we aren’t using those nuclear weapons we have lying around? I’m sure the Lord Jesus Who once excoriated the Pharisees about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel (Mt 23:24) is proud. But then again, look who’s tutoring them.
The picture of Church and State today
Making the Masonic Sign of “The Lion’s (or Cat’s) Paw,” supposedly representative of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah but also a symbol of Satan (I Pet 5:8), and typical of Masonic duplicity, ambiguity and confusion.
Masochism Is Not A Spiritual Value
Maybe I didn’t cover this sufficiently in the past, but one of the Christian Right’s biggest problems is what I call its flirtation with theocracy. They don’t have the guts or honesty to come right out and advocate for an actual union of Church and State, but their hatred and fear of secular government “getting the glory due to God” or some such thing pushes them to force “Christian” culture down the throat of everyone else whether they want it or not. As such they become a force for divisiveness and resentment when they could take their place as but one faction in a pluralistic society, having a reputation for reasonable, smart, wise, practical and stable leadership. Then the Gospel could be preached with credibility because the public would be seeing it demonstrated before them.
It’s the difference between catching fish and depth charging them. We decry “secular humanism” as our great enemy and end up in bed with mobsters instead. When I watch TV journalists grill members of this administration for the latter’s ridiculous “dog-ate-the-homework” excuses for everything, I don’t see a “secular humanist” but a fellow American asking reasonable questions.
One of them is the forthright Keith Olbermann quoted at the beginning but I must disagree with his optimism. Trump could very well be cleared for a long history of outright crimes because he has the power to fire Robert Mueller! Quite frankly, I don’t think he’d care about the firestorm of protest that would follow. He’s a man who would bring the country to the brink of civil war and love every minute of the strife he’s caused. I’m not even sure he ever even wanted to run, he seems to hate the job so much. It may well be that he had to run as the latest Shabbos goy front man/fall guy who owes these Zionist mobsters so much money or favors.
That Smell Around Jay Sekulow
I say this too because now Trump has hired Pat Robertson’s “pit bull” as he puts it, Jay Sekulow to be one of his attorneys. Sekulow has openly counseled Trump that the President in his official duties can more or less do whatever he wants, that he’s effectively above the law. Even a charge of treason would be really hard to pin on him despite what evidence is presented. Impeachment is a political not a legal procedure and these Social Darwinist Republicans dominate a Congress Israel helped steal for them.
Only God is the Judge of how sincere Sekulow’s claim to be a genuine Messianic believer is, but he sure strikes me as a paid propaganda agent and social mobilizer in the tradition of, you know, say a Saul Alinksky. Everything about his radio show screams “intel psy op” to me, right down to the manipulative, even mocking bumper music. You can take your pick as to which agency if any but it’s not an American one. He’s an aggressive, brilliant, fast-talking, double-talking argument machine with a bad reputation for playing loose with the Christian public’s money.[vii]
I will leave you with a toe-to-toe, knock-down drag-out debate between him and CNN’s Chris Cuomo. Think of “secular humanist” (probably Catholic) Cuomo as representing the Christian/ Enlightenment/ Objective view of reality and Sekulow as representing the Talmudic/ Subjective/ “everything gets politicized” one. Cuomo has to school him on the difference between legality and morality, the Church’s loudly-claimed forte. Watch it just for the entertainment value alone. It’s like being on crack.
Update: July 19, 2017
Ian Greenhalgh at VeteransToday has just published, “The Real Reason Trump Jr. Met The Russian Lawyer.” It confirms everything said above and shows that that meeting was to discuss ways of getting sanctions lifted on Russia (the Magnitsky Act) so the flow of dirty money out of Russia can continue under Trump. “Dirt on Hillary” or concern for orphans was incidental if anything.
Update II, Jan. 2020
Cuomo above is right that Don Jr’s meeting with the Russians was more than just “inappropriate.” It was a felony crime and one of many times Team Trump colluded with the Russians. Here is what the 2002 federal bi-partisan statute says about “coordination” (collusion): [this law] “shall not require agreement or formal collaboration to establish coordination. Coordinated means made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate.” In other words, just like in knowingly receiving stolen goods, any help knowingly received from a foreign source is colluding (conspiring) with them.
In an email setting up the meeting, Rob Goldstone told Don Jr it would be a “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” The reason Robert Mueller refused to charge Trump with collusion is that he took the position in his report that “‘coordination’ does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express.” Yet the statute quoted from above proves it’s very broad anyhow, even in spite of such bald-faced overtures. Mueller may have been part of a wide-ranging truce that’s taken place between different Washington crime families since the funeral of George Bush Sr.
Notes:
[i] “The Illuminati Candidate,” May 9, 2016.
[ii] “‘Queen of Mean’ Leona Helmsley Dies.”
[iii] Brzezinski and Scarborough claimed that the President “packed about five lies” in that Tweet, that it was Trump who kept calling Joe to visit Mar-a-Lago, not the other way around, and that when Joe showed up alone Trump kept asking about Mika. “For some reason he was more interested in Mika being there than me,” Scarborough explained with a knowing smile on his face. You can draw whatever inference from that as you might.
[iv] It is said of Russia that it’s a society where the government, organized crime, intelligence agencies and the business community are constantly interrelated and it will become more and more that way in America under Trump too.
[v] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/28/suffolk-poll-obamacare-trump-senate-health-care-plan/103249346/
[vi] Typical of the constant reports of everyone exhausted at the White House include, “President fumes against his enemies….senior aides circle one another with suspicion….President Trump…hidden from public view….enraged that the Russia cloud still hangs over his presidency….public relations disaster….infighting often seems like a core cultural value…. an extensive campaign to try to discredit some of the journalists,” etc. “The White House Is Not a Good Place To Be Right Now” http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/the-white-house-is-not-a-good-place-to-be-right-now/
[vii] “The Secrets of Jay Sekulow” by Tony Mauro, Nov. 1, 2005. https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/oldspeak/the_secrets_of_jay_sekulow
