Polls and Statistics

Someone once said there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  It would seem that national polls are based on all three.  2016 pollsters had Hillary Clinton as our next president in a landslide.  We all know how that turned out.

 The following quote came from the LA Times on October 4, 2016:

"...the election forecast at Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com gives Hillary Clinton a 71.2% chance of beating Donald Trump (who accordingly has a 28.8% chance of winning); the New York Times Upshot blog has her at 80%; Daily Kos Elections has her at 72%; and the Princeton Election Consortium at 85% or 91%, depending on how you crunch the raw numbers."

Hillary Clinton wins by 70%

Here we are embarking on yet another presidential election year.  We are already being bombarded with studies, polls, and the results of statistical analysis.  Math was never my strong suit but I’m generally good using logic.  Hindsight is also something that has served me well in the past.  So, how accurate can these polls be?  I know I’ve never been asked a political question in response to a national poll but, then again, I don’t answer the phone to “unknown number” or similar cryptic Caller ID’s.

A friend recently put up a meme that was questioning California taxes (hinting at the socialism involved) and then pointing out that, even with its high taxes, California was 42^nd in the nation with its educational system.  I had trouble swallowing that number and went about verifying its accuracy.  He was right, California is 42^nd in the nation according to accepted statistics.

I still had trouble getting my head around that number so, like Paul Harvey before me, I decided to get, “the rest of the story.”

Paul Harvey, "Now you know, the rest of the story."

What I found was a case study on how numbers can be misleading.  National education polls generally rely on test results from NAEP or the National Assessment of Education Progress, aka, the national report card.  These tests average scores for various subjects such as math, reading, and science for different grade levels.

While this sounds logical, further analysis shows it can present an incomplete picture.  One study of these results found that most published interpretations “ignore heterogeneity.”  Yeah, I had to look that one up too and the definition still didn’t explain the problem.  It seems that they are referring to the failure of these tests to evaluate the impact of the variations in socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.  This was starting to sound like some type of left-wing spin to counter the raw number scores until I got into the real-world examples.

The CATO Institute published a paper in November of 2018 that used Texas and Iowa as a comparison.  Iowa (#8) ranks much higher than Texas (#33) in the usual educational rankings of students in the K-12 scores.  With those numbers, you would think that you would be better off taking a job in Iowa and putting your kids in that system rather than Texas.  You might be wrong.

Iowa is 87% White, 5% Hispanic, 3% Black, and 2% Asian.  Texas, on the other hand, is 43% White, 38% Hispanic, 12% Black, and 4% Asian.  The poverty rates for both states for their White population are equal at 7%.  This could give Iowa a significant advantage in student test scores if you believe that poverty has an influence on education.  I would personally accept that premise.  With 93% of the poverty for each state focused on their respective minority populations, and with Iowa having but 13% of their citizens occupying that classification, they might understandably have a better raw score ranking.

With just that one additional factor of poverty, you can see why the raw test scores averaged across each state might not paint an accurate picture of their educational systems.  With Iowa, outscoring Texas in each of three tests in reading, math, and science at both the fourth and eighth-grade levels; it would reasonably be assumed that disaggregated comparisons by race would show similar results.  In actuality, Texas outscores Iowa in all but one category in twenty exams given by both states.  The one exception is the reading test for eighth-grade Hispanic students where Iowa tops Texas.  The disaggregated comparison puts White scores in each state head to head and likewise compares Hispanic, Black and Asian scores in the three categories.  By this arguably more even comparison, the Texas school system is better than the one in Iowa even though the raw numbers have the results flipped.

President Harry Truman holds a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune bearing the infamous headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" in November 1948.  The polls were so sure that newspapers pre-printed their headlines much to their embarrassment.

The point of all of this is just to show that polls and surveys are only as reliable as the methodology used for the results.  When you see that a new poll has been released and it shows favorable results that you want to believe, take it with a grain of salt.  At this point and with recent history in mind, you might want to go off your low-sodium diet, remove the cap and dump the salt shaker.  When in doubt, review the quote and national map graphic above.

Get off your ass and vote!

Trump is a Genius

Yes, what Albert Einstein was to mathematics, what Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was to music, what Stephen Hawking was to theoretical physics, and what Charles Darwin was to biology, Donald J. Trump is to corruption.  He is a corruption savant.  If there is an easy and honest way to accomplish something, “The Donald” will find a more convoluted corrupt way to achieve the same goal.  Donald Trump is the Marie Curie of corruption.

Corruption is from the Latin word ‘corrumpere’ meaning to mar, bribe, spoil, seduce, or destroy.  In the mid-14^th century, it meant corrupted, debased in character, depraved morally, or perverted from good to bad.  In the late-14^th century, it also included contamination, the impairment of purity, and the seduction of a woman. In the Old French, it was ‘corropt’, meaning unhealthy or uncouth.  Etymological studies find that in its intransitive sense, the meaning of corruption is to putrefy and change from a sound to a putrid state.  I thought it was a good idea to see how this colorful and descriptive word might be applicable to the world’s most prodigious liar.

Donald Trump may not be a good businessman but he is a good corrupt businessman.  The nature of big-city real estate, particularly in New York, is to demand a small bit of larceny in order to achieve any level of success.  That is New York’s problem and an easy one to circumvent by avoidance even in that city; don't do business with him and you are safe.  The problem for us is that he has now brought his genius-level corruption to the world-stage where it impacts those outside the Empire State.  Now everyone from Bangor to Honolulu and from Fairbanks to Miami is within his corruptive clutches.  We will ignore for the time being the remaining 7.7 billion other folks who may also be impacted by his actions.

We have sadly come to accept a certain level of corruption in our government.  A little nepotism here, a favor for a friend there, or perhaps even a campaign donation finding its way into a home remodeling job will hardly raise an eyebrow anymore.  What caught us all off-guard with this president, however, was the openness and gravity of the corruption; the sheer audacity of it all.  We are now expected to accept campaign funds being used to pay off a porn star for her silence regarding an extramarital affair.  We are supposed to look the other way when the president’s admitted financial ties to Russia are the backdrop to a complete reversal of 45 years of Cold War animosity between our two countries.  In the most recent case of this president’s adoration of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president’s word is accepted above those of the whole of our intelligence community and the findings published in a bi-partisan two-volume Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report regarding Russian interference in our 2016 election.  Our president would have you believe the ex-KGB agent and current president of Russia over everyone else in our government.  What explanation could there be for that level of denial, if not blatant corruption?

I am reminded of a quote from Rodney Dangerfield in the movie comedy Back to School where Rodney plays a character named Thornton Melon.  Mr. Melon is a successful businessman who returns to school.  In the scene, he is in a business class and the professor is discussing a sound business plan.  Thornton calls out the teacher and tells him he has “left out a bunch of stuff.”  When asked, “Like what for instance,” Melon replies, “First of all you're going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up.  Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya.  Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there's long term costs such as waste disposal.  I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the boy scouts.”

Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School

Mr. Melon’s depiction of rampant corruption in various areas of business is perhaps accurate and somewhat cynical if not comical.  It is, however, this very corruption that President Trump claims to want to dispose of in Ukraine but he adopts it as a tool when it benefits his interests.  Donald J. Trump the businessman, brought with him the immorality and corrupt work ethic from that wheeling and dealing world of real estate and business to the White House.  He promised reform and to "drain the swamp."  It would appear that he has changed the meaning of "drain the swamp" from one of an ethical standard to one that embodies anything he doesn't like.

Misspeak or Freudian Slip?

Trump's properties have now become attractive destinations for foreign governments and business interests who want to curry favor with this president.  Even our own government operations have been steered to Trump-branded properties delivering a financial emolument to their namesake.  In February of 2017, the State Department booked 19 rooms at the Vancouver, BC Trump hotel.  The US military has likewise spent over $200,000 at Trump’s Turnberry Scottish resort even though it is inconvenient to locate there.  Mar-a-Lago is now the Winter White House as advertised and promoted on a State Department website in April of 2017, with descriptions of praise for its “Venetian and Portuguese influences and private collection of antiques.”

The president’s claims of his financial separation from his businesses are belied by the fact that, while business direction has been transferred to his children, he still has open accounts with the business to withdraw any needed monies.  The new tax reform initiatives are due to save Trump businesses tens of millions of dollars annually.  This article and this writer don’t have the time or inclination to further detail the numerous examples of corruption perpetrated by this president in his three years in office.  Suffice it to say that this presidency will probably be tied up in court battles for years.  To read a chronological list of the president's corruptive practices, you might want to visit this GQ (my bible) article.

The problem faced by all of us today stems from the caustic nature of government corruption, particularly on this scale.  We all realize that some level of corruption will always be present; this is nothing new.  What is new is Donald J. Trump’s blatant and blasé attitude toward that corruption.  His “above-the-law” defense rings hollow to us but he is getting away with it before our very eyes.  His open corruption breeds more corruption elsewhere.  If the president can do it and make money, why is it wrong for anyone else?  How can we demand corruption reform from countries like Ukraine when our president abuses his power for political and financial gain?

We earlier stated that Donald Trump was the Marie Curie of corruption.  Madame Curie was a true genius in her field of radioactivity but it brought about her eventual demise.  President Trump should be wary of his field of endeavor and worry that corruption may too be a cause of his undoing.

Marie Curie

Footnote:  Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and she was the only winner of two such prizes.  Donald J. Trump's much sought after Nobel Peace Prize is still elusive.

Donald Trump in 2020?

Welcome to the Divided States of America.  While we have long had our two-party system of government, prior to January 20, 2017, the gap between Democrat and Republican or liberal and conservative was a manageable space.  The process of compromise might slow things down, but in a democracy, that’s how we roll.  We have now become divided like no time in our history since the Civil War.  What can we do to correct the situation?  Well, we have a built-in remedy called the ballot box and our upcoming 2020 elections may be the most important in my lifetime.  What do we have to look forward to next November?  Let’s look at where we are now.

Trump Supporter defined:
You, like many Americans, were fed up with our government and the congressional swamp.  You were outraged at its failure to make progress in the many issues that are important to you.  You are a proud American and you believe in a strong military.  You are a patriot who still gets a tingle when you see our flag flying and hear our national anthem.  You are not alone; most Democrats also share those values.

Donald J. Trump entered the presidential race and you had a sense that you knew him.  You had perhaps read about his exploits in the tabloids or watched him on his Apprentice reality television show.  He had money and bravado that you admired.  He made many promises that made you think he could and would make a positive impact on our lethargic Congress and he would get things done.

Analysis

Here we are nearing the end of his first term as president and we can now look back at his promises and see all that he has accomplished.  We will see that he has made many changes and that he has kept his promise to shake things up.

President Trump’s major campaign promises:

1. Build a wall along the Mexican border and find a way to get Mexico to pay for that wall.
2. Repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
3. Suspend immigration from terror-prone places.
4. Cut taxes for people and businesses.
5. Address our crumbling infrastructure with a $550 billion fund.
6. Improve trade with a repeal of NAFTA and TPP and use tariffs to our benefit.
7. Root out corruption and drain the swamp.

Let’s look at these promises one at a time:

1.  While the president gets an “E” for the effort to build a border wall, his inability to negotiate with a Congress that controls the purse strings, has made these efforts ineffective.  He lacked the ability to sell the idea of a simple but extremely expensive solution to a very complex immigration problem.  Since he ignored the experts with more comprehensive ideas for physical border security, his plan has essentially failed.  His 2,000-year-old solution (Great Wall of China, 221 BC) fails to deter a determined population from crossing our southern border.  We also now know that he had no idea how Mexico would pay for the wall, only that it made a nice sound bite.  None of this even begins to solve the overall problem of illegal immigration.

2.  President Trump’s attempts to repeal Obamacare have failed for good reason, people like it.  Yes, it is flawed and needs work, but Trump has no plan to replace this Band-Aid on our overall national healthcare problem.  Donald Trump does not deal well with complexity, hasn’t hired people who might be able to help, and doesn’t listen to the ones he has hired.  Republicans have tried over 70 times to repeal, delay, defund, or otherwise neutralize Obamacare without effect so it is not all on Trump.  Obamacare is the law of the land and until someone comes up with a better solution, President Trump’s efforts would be better spent on repairing the Affordable Care Act.

3.  The president’s efforts to ban travel from certain countries felt to be terrorist sponsors have failed.  Executive Order 13769, and its replacement, 13780, aka the Muslim bans, have been hit with restraining orders that prevented enforcement or they have been struck down by the courts.  Most court findings have dealt with the discriminatory nature of the Order.

4.  President Trump successfully pushed through his tax-cut bill.  Federal tax receipts from corporations have plunged.  About one-third of these benefits went to foreigners as many U.S. corporations are either foreign subsidiaries or their stock is owned by foreigners.  Therefore, a third of this went overseas.  On the U.S. side of things, the benefits went mostly (84%) to the wealthiest 10 percent of the population.  From 2017 to 2018, the corporate tax rate went from 23.4% to 12.1% but personal income taxes as a percentage of income fell but from 9.6% to 9.2%.  Instead of paying down our national debt in this good economic time, Trump has pushed our debt past $22 trillion.  Corporations and the very wealthy got the lion’s share of this debt increase and the average taxpayer got a few crumbs.

5.  Trump’s $550 billion infrastructure fund never materialized.  In his third year, his State of the Union address mentioned a $200 billion infrastructure fund to be used to stimulate other investments.  In a bipartisan effort, Democrats approved $2 trillion to be used to repair our crumbling infrastructure and create thousands of jobs.  During an infrastructure meeting at the White House, in a staged move, Trump made a short speech and walked out of the meeting.  He immediately marched outside to a podium set up in the Rose Garden in front of waiting news cameras to announce that he was nixing the infrastructure deal because the nasty Democrats were supporting the Mueller investigation.  Now that that investigation is over and now that it would be in Trump’s best interests to revive this significant investment in our jobs economy, what is stopping him?  Well, I guess that the impeachment hearings could be lined up as his next scapegoat.

6.  The replacement of NAFTA, with the new USMCA, has cleared initial hurdles but it has not been ratified by the three participating countries.  USMCA is essentially a minor update to NAFTA with changes for automakers, enforcement of labor standards, and intellectual/digital property protections.  TPP was never ratified.  A tariff war has been started to the detriment of farmers and various sectors of our economy.  These tariffs and resulting retaliatory actions taken by our trading partners have reduced domestic economic output, income, and employment.  These tariffs have imposed an $87 billion tax on Americans.  I say this because, while businesses may absorb the initial cost increase, they will pass these on to us with higher costs.  It is estimated that, if all the announced tariffs were fully imposed, U.S. GDP would fall by 0.66 percent amounting to $165 billion.  This would offset around 40% of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  Wages would fall by 0.44 percent and employment would fall off by half a million.

7.  The status of Trump draining the swamp and getting rid of corruption would seem to be self-evident.  I have lost track of the number of Trump appointees who have gone to jail, are awaiting sentencing, are under indictment, or are under investigation.  At this moment, Roger Stone has been found guilty of all seven counts in his indictment and he is awaiting a ruling on how much time he will serve.

Where do we go from here?  

The choices will be simple, vote for Trump or “the other guy/gal.”  Right now, the latter choice is unknown.  Trump, however, is a known entity.  Here is what we know to be factual.  I will try to keep opinions and left-wing rhetoric out of this.  We won’t go into the merits of what he has promised but only how effective he has been in his job bringing those promises to fruition.

• Trump has in his favor the fact that he has tried to fulfill many of his campaign promises.  His inexperience in government, however, finds him ill-equipped to fulfill those promises.  No matter how smart he thinks he is, he is a poor negotiator.  He dictates but does not negotiate.  This possibly worked for him as a real estate developer but it is a non-starter in government.  A CEO of a corporation can act in an authoritarian manner, but the president is only one of three co-equal branches of government.  Being decisive can be a good thing, but not when you are wrong.
• Draining the swamp does not mean digging a moat and adding more alligators and snakes.  No one person can do it all; he needs help.  He needs intelligent people who can tell him when he is right and tell him when he is wrong.  He was smart enough to hire some of those people in the beginning but his pride/ego seems to have gotten in the way.  He has fired the people who might have helped him achieve his goals.  Six of the people he hired are now convicted felons.
• Donald Trump has a strange sense of truth.  I don’t think I need to elaborate this point as his conflicting, captured-on-video statements, are put up nightly on the news side by side.  In this department, he is regularly shown to outdo Nixon and the 1919 White Sox.  Ben Franklin was a teller of tall tales and his kite and the key story is pure fiction.  Tall tales are very different from outright lies meant to deceive others and persuade them to take some desired action.  Repeating a lie many times does not make it true.  Robert Ripley used lies that couldn’t be verified with outrageous facts that couldn’t possibly be made up, and he combined that with an enormous sense of audacity and built his “Believe It or Not” empire.  Luckily, Robert Ripley was not our president.
• Trump’s morality as the leader of a civilized society should not be a major point of contention.  Normally, live and let live would be a wise motto to follow and a person’s private life should be their own business.  Donald Trump’s extremes, however, make it a matter for consideration.  I needn’t elaborate on his deviations from societal norms as they are well documented.  His declarations of religious piety are almost laughable.  Evangelicals would do well to look elsewhere for a new messiah.
• Donald Trump’s knowledge of history and foreign affairs is found wanting.  He regularly displays a complete lack of understanding of these areas that are so critical to the proper functioning of the so-called “leader of the free world.”  This wouldn’t be so bad if only he would, as promised, surround himself with smart people who could give sound advice.
• His criminal-like behavior is regularly on full display.  He talks in mob-code so as to avoid incrimination, but he doesn’t seem to be particularly good at this either.  His comments to the president of Ukraine that, Ambassador Yovanovitch would be “going through some things,” was a not too veiled a threat.  The Donald took his mob training from Roy Cohn, a seasoned mob lawyer.  John Gotti might say, “Do me a favor, get rid of that stone in my shoe,” when calling in a hit.  Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, also works for a Ukrainian bagman, Lev Parnas, who gets his money from Dmytro Firtash a Russian oligarch and close personal friend of Vladimir Putin. 

Decision time:

The points above are of serious concern but I have saved the most serious concern of mine for last.  I put this here, separated from the rest, as it is an opinion and not a proven fact.  It is conjecture on my part, but I can’t seem to find another explanation.  Russia is our enemy.  Not the Russian people, almost all of them that I have met have been very nice.  It is the Russian government, in place during my entire lifetime, that is evil.  While children today have active shooter drills, I had duck and cover drills and Saturday air-raid siren tests that were getting me ready for the anticipated nuclear holocaust that would be unleashed by that government.  How Russia, our long-time rival and political enemy suddenly became our nation’s sweetheart, eludes me.

We do know that Donald Trump has financial ties to Russia.  His son, Eric Trump once bragged, “We don’t rely on American banks.  We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”  Donald Trump is guarding his financial information like a state secret.  What is he hiding?  This wouldn’t be of much concern if it were not for his “Russia can do no wrong” attitude.  Putin wants Crimea, no problem; let’s lift the sanctions for their aggression.  Putin wants a foothold in Syria, no problem; we’ll just pull out our troops so you can swoop in and save the Kurds we just abandoned.  Putin wants to counteract American intelligence findings that Russia interfered with our election, not a problem; we'll have Rudy Giuliani and Gordon Sondland get the new Ukrainian president to announce the start of an investigation into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 elections.  Putin wants to bring back corruption to Ukraine so that he and his friends can begin to make billions of rubles, no problem; we’ll recall our ambassador to Ukraine who has been fighting corruption and we will put in a Trump appointee who will cooperate.

Time to choose:

These are all points to consider when you make a decision next November.  Do you want four more years of riding the Trump rollercoaster or do you want what’s behind door number two?  Even if it is a live llama, it might be a better choice.

Your New Llama

A brief note to Senate Republicans:  Perhaps it would be in your best long-term interest to support impeachment and replace Trump with a true patriot for 2020.

Ukraine Scandal; Follow the Money

There were so many players in this Ukrainian story I was having difficulty trying to connect the dots.  I like pictures but couldn’t find one that explained things so I could understand the convoluted machinations of the many players.

1.  Vladimir Putin = President of Russia, former Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB and director of FSB (the successor agency to KGB).
2.  Dmytro Firtash = Oil & Gas Oligarch, Russian Organized Crime. (avoiding extradition to U.S.)
3 & 4.  Igor Fruman & Lev Parnash = Ukrainian nationals, working for Dmytro Firtash and employers of Rudy Giuliani ($500k); their objective was to force out Andriy Kobolyev and Maria Yovanovich.  (both are now awaiting trial after attempting to flee the U.S.)
5. Rudy Giuliani = Trump lawyer supported Russian efforts to oust ambassador Yovanovich, no security clearance
6. Andriy Kobolyev = CEO of Naftogaz (Ukraine nationalized gas co.), fighting corruption and he reduced dependency (on Russian natural gas from 93% to 0%.
7. Maria Yovanovich = former American Ambassador to Ukraine, fought corruption, supported Andrei Kubalyev
8.  Donald Trump = U.S. president, lover of all things Russian, claims to be in the hospitality business, no previous job experience.

First, let’s all get on the same page.  I’m not talking about the “phone call” that is being beaten to death in the news and which is the main subject of the impeachment investigation.  I think if I never hear Quid Pro Quo ever again, it will be too soon.  Just call it bribery and be done with it.  Certainly, we all now know that President Trump used mob extortion methods in an attempt to bribe the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.  He used our tax dollars, approved by congress, as a bargaining chip to get political dirt on a rival.  He withheld that military aid for almost two months and during that time 13 Ukrainians died on the battlefield fighting the Russians.  Could the aid have made a difference?  Maybe, maybe not, but it just goes to show how serious this all is.  Republicans are trying to downplay the whole matter by now calling it Quid Pro So?  They denied that it happened, then there was no "this for that," and now it's what's the big deal about a little bribery and extortion.  But we are not talking about that little tidbit.

No, I’m talking about the big money angle to this Ukrainian thing.  As in any good story, it is always wise to follow the money.  The big money here is coming from the Russian oil and gas industry, specifically the natural gas (NG) side of things.  You see, Ukraine used to import 93% of all its natural gas from Russia.  These were corrupt times and apparently, a lot of money was changing hands and the former head of Naftogaz was involved.  Naftogaz is the nationalized natural gas corporation in Ukraine.  There were many scandals but, to describe just one, they had fictitious “dead souls” at fake non-existent addresses consuming large quantities of subsidized natural gas which got diverted and sold to real corporations.

Natural gas, NG, has been an ongoing problem with Russia and Ukraine for years.  These disputes have grown beyond simple business disputes into transnational political issues involving political leaders from several countries.  These disputes threaten natural gas supplies in numerous European countries that are dependent on natural gas imports from Russian suppliers, which are transported through Ukraine pipelines.  Russia provides approximately a quarter of the natural gas consumed in the European Union; approximately 80% of those exports travel through pipelines across Ukrainian soil prior to arriving in the EU.

Red lines show NG pipelines across Ukraine that supply western Europe

The new head of Naftogaz came in to fight corruption.  His name is Andriy Kobolyev.  [note: I will spell these foreign names as best I can as I have found several spellings in various publications, I will use the most common.]   Ukraine has its own NG supplies and production but was buying most of its domestic supply from Russia.  Andriy came in to head Naftogaz in 2014 and managed to reduce Ukrainian NG consumption from Russian sources from 93% to 0%.

The flag graphic above has perhaps two honest people represented.  Can you guess who they might be?  If you get it right you may pick up your prize next November.

You can imagine how thrilled Russian oligarch, Dmytro Firtash was when he found that Ukrainian corruption was no longer as profitable as it once was for his NG business.  So Dmytro, in typical Russian mob fashion, hires Fruman and Parnash aka Igor and Lev.  He supplies them with lots of cash.  They hire Rudy Giuliani, yes that Rudy Giuliani and they get to meet Trump.  Trump meets them but later denies ever knowing who they are.  They want, among other things, the ouster of Maria Yovanovich, the Ambassador to Ukraine.  Maria is a career diplomat and staunch fighter of corruption and wholly supports the new Andriy Kubalyev and his anti-corruption policy.  They (Vladimir, Dmytro, Igor, & Lev) also want the ouster of Andriy Kobolyev.

Rudy Giuliani takes $500,000 from Lev Parnas and does his bidding.  He begins to spread disinformation about Maria Y and gets her pulled from her post as a career Ambassador serving in Ukraine.

I managed to create the picture above with the players arranged on their respective flags that show their allegiances.  Note that Rudy is placed on all three flags.  Rudy is all about Rudy and wherever the money is coming from is where he will pledge his allegiance.  Rudy you may remember was the head of a presidential working group on cybersecurity or as he described it on Fox & Friends,  "security for cyber."  Rudy’s knowledge in this area was punctuated in an embarrassing moment in February 2017, when he locked himself out of his iPhone after forgetting his passcode and entering the wrong one at least ten times.  The presidential “security for cyber expert” then had to drive to an Apple Genius Bar in San Francisco to get it fixed.  So, Rudy the adviser to the president on cybersecurity hands over his phone to a stranger in a shopping mall, and it’s Hillary Clinton’s emails that are the security threat?

Trump truly hires the very best.  Rudy is nothing if not comical.  Is the position for court jester open?

Rudy the Court Jester

So, as you can see, Putin, the former Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB and director of FSB (the successor agency to KGB) has a friend in Dmytro Firtash who is connected with the Russian mob who happens to be a middleman for the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom.  He also has a part-time job funneling money into the campaigns of pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine.  He uses Igor and Lev as his bagmen.  These guys hire Rudy G, who also works as a “lawyer” for our president and also works part-time as the head of the State Department in an unofficial back-room kinda way.

Now we hear that when Trump claimed that he didn’t know Lev and Igor, the former got miffed and wants to spill some dirt on the president.  Ours, not his.  What comes out of all of this remains to be seen.  As with all such political intrigue, it always wise to Follow the Money.