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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world [S] 2 points 10 months ago (8 children)

It can be two things. Read this or anything else about Cambridge Analytica to get a sense of the difference between what they were doing and the same hack political radio ad hour after hour.

Trump's ties to russia are many and varied, going back forty-plus years. It’s all been documented in Proof of Conspiracy, Mueller found collusion; these are not hypotheticals. It’s a known part of the current befuckdedness.

Is it the ONLY part? No. But it starts there and it stays there.

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[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago

Cambridge Analytica

UK group and Facebook profit maximization is not Russia. Blaming the pure establishment corruption of democracy on Russia is just partisan whining for more establishment warmongering.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Trump’s ties to russia are many and varied

Trump's ties to the Italian Mafia are stronger. He's a second generation fence and money launderer who made a fortune helping to move money out of Eastern Europe back in the 90s.

But he's an American creation who worked on behalf of American institutions. That's why he's tied up with Guliani, Bloomberg, Clinton, and Epstein.

The tunnel vision liberals have with Russia ignores a rich vein of corruption for one of its more salacious and partisan tributaries.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world [S] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Trump's ties to the Italian Mafia are stronger.

We're probably splitting hairs, but - what? I haven't heard that before but I've heard a LOT about the russian angle. (we seem to converge on Eastern Europe though)

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

what? I haven’t heard that before

It was bigger news back in 2016

The picture shows that Trump’s career has benefited from a decades-long and largely successful effort to limit and deflect law enforcement investigations into his dealings with top mobsters, organized crime associates, labor fixers, corrupt union leaders, con artists and even a one-time drug trafficker whom Trump retained as the head of his personal helicopter service.

The Russia connection was minor by comparison, and largely a result of Trump's status as a lynchpin in NY crime.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world [S] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

I think that DCJ piece is good, and clearly ‘mob’ connections are rife, but outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys, there’s not a lot more specific to Italian mafia.

I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.

Felix Sater, Michael Cohen, Rybolovlev and others who consistently and repeatedly appear in any honest accounting of his blatantly illegal dealings.

Unger’s account of infiltration also exposes how Trump’s financial entanglements laid the groundwork for this betrayal. In the 1980s, as Trump struggled with debt from failing casinos and overextended real estate ventures, Soviet-linked financiers appeared, flush with cash.

Deals involving Trump Tower properties drew in shadowy buyers connected to Russian organized crime and intelligence fronts. Even when Western banks deemed him too risky, new Russian-linked money never seemed to dry up. Each transaction pulled him closer into Moscow’s orbit.

By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian oligarchs kept the pipeline open, ensuring that Trump’s business empire would survive—and remain beholden to foreign backers whose first loyalty was to the Kremlin. (via)

So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties. Given that russia is run by mafias-within-mafias that’s not so surprising, is it.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys

The article goes significantly farther than ready-mix concrete. Trump was in tight with the Gambino family, among other mob affiliates and organizations.

I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.

It ties out with a shift in policy from Cold Era Italy being a major bridge between NATO agencies in the West and their informants/operators in the East. Post-collapse, Sicily was old news since you could march your goons directly into St. Petersburg and Moscow to commence the looting.

But Trump's roll as a money launderer and fixer remains consistent during the transition.

So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties.

His primary ties were to US and German lenders, with black market business interests using his properties to clean their ill-gotten gains. The flood of money and refugees coming out of Eastern Europe following the post-Soviet crash changed the composition of his criminal clients. His roll in legitimizing the looting through financialization did not.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 0 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

Cambridge Analytica is a good place to start. Previously:

IT Pro: Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective, [UK Information Commissioner’s Office] claims

Wall Street Journal: Mueller Doesn’t Find Trump Campaign Conspired With Russia

Jacobin: Democrats and Mainstream Media Were the Real Kremlin Assets

Washington Post: FEC fines DNC, Clinton for violating rules in funding Steele dossier

Washington Post: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters

Jacobin: It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election

Matt Taibbi: Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud The Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork

Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.

MSNBC Repeats Hamilton 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes

Matt Taibbi: CIA "Cooked The Intelligence" To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016

Aaron Maté: Under Trump, the CIA is still covering up its Russiagate fraud

Matt Taibbi: Note on New Trump-Russia Disclosures Thanks to explosive new document releases, the Russiagate hoax is now exposed, commencing a new era that will be about accountability for the guilty

Matt Taibbi: No Doubt Left: Russiagate Was a Cover-Up

Chris Hedges: Why Russiagate Won’t Go Away The cynical con the Democratic Party and the F.B.I. carried out to falsely portray Donald Trump as a puppet of the Kremlin worked, and continues to work, because it is what those who detest Trump want to believe.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 10 months ago

Those archive.today links didn’t work for me, but that could just be me. The “studies” are opinions otherwise and if you want to pick one, I’ll kick it apart but I’m not going to go through all of them.