Today, the shadow of that scandal lingers. How much did Trump’s toying with Ukraine, cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and, ultimately, Trump’s acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress influence Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine?
“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”
“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “Prescient information pops to mind. What’s the difference between intuition and imagination? You’ll get the sense of knowing something immediately without understanding how you could. That’s intuition.” Scorpio
Hi and welcome to Thurday’s 13th Episode in Season 4 of “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 24th day of March in the spring of 2022.
We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year.
Season 4 continues now within domestic and global chaos.
Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year
S4 E12 —Why Did Trump Sue Deutsche Bank?; S4 E11 — Were Putin and Trump Dipping into the Same Piggy Bank?; S4 E10 — Who’s the First Person You Wanna Tell?;
Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year
S3 E13 — Why?; S3 E12 — You Can’t Cure Stupid, but There’s a Cure for Ignorance; S3 E11 — Looking for a New Predictive Belief System?; S3 E10 —Feeding the Beast for Sheila in Fantasyland;
Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year
S2 E13 — Slipping on a Bar of Dove Soap and other Ripple Effects; S2 E12 — Too Anxious to Meet and Eat; S2 E11 — Waiting for the 3rd Shoe to Drop; S2 E10 — Cats, Ladders and Shaking Salt …;
Related from Season One, the Normal Year
S1 E13 — Day 13 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E12 — Day 12 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E11 — Day 11 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E10 — Day 10 of My 1-Year Experiment;
Context
And of course, questions swirled about Trump’s real relationship with Putin leading up to the famous holding up of funds Congress had earmarked for Ukraine in his Quid Pro Quo phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected President Zelensky.
His acquittal in the sham Senate impeachment (1.0) trial was another such reward for bad behavior. And a clue that no guard rails could contain his lust for clinching a second term in the White House. — David Enrich
Tracy Wilkinson and Sarah D. Wire probe the question most on my mind from witnessing the daily streaming of the Putin’s Ukraine invasion and from reading “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman and more recently, “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” by David Enrich.
Given that Trump delayed weapons to Ukraine and praised Putin, did that trigger Putin’s war?
Wilkinson and Wire remind us that,
“Trump in 2019 threatened to withhold weapons deliveries to Ukraine — caught even then in a simmering war with Russian proxies — unless President Zelensky helped him dig up political dirt on probable 2020 election rival, Joe Biden.”
Today, the shadow of that scandal lingers. How much did Trump’s toying with Ukraine, cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and, ultimately, Trump’s acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress influence Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine?
Numerous experts and current and former officials say Putin was emboldened by the Trump years. The former KGB officer turned president ably manipulated Trump into publicly backing his denials of having interfered — to Trump’s benefit — in U.S. elections. And, according to former aides, Putin convinced Trump to accept his claim that Ukraine was part of Russia.
By most accounts, Putin stewed in grievances for years — the expansion of NATO farther east into his sphere of influence, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and a post-Cold War world order that marginalized Russia — waiting for an opportunity to build back his vision of a grand Russian superpower empire.
Marie Yovanovitch, a former US ambassador to Ukraine said Putin saw “that we had an administration that was willing to trade our national security for personal and political gain.”
Fiona Hill, a highly regarded Russia expert who served on Trump’s National Security Council noted at a “critical period,” when Ukraine was fighting Russia and needed weapons, Trump had his own political future in mind. It sent “a message to Putin that Ukraine is a plaything for him … and for the United States.”
During the Obama administration, Putin invaded parts of eastern Ukraine, annexing the Crimean peninsula and installing Russian proxies to fight Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region — with minimal US or international rebuke.
Still, Trump’s actions, and the lack of significant consequences he faced, represented a unique opening, a bright green light for Putin in Ukraine.
According to Adam Schiff,
What that told Putin, tragically, is the United States doesn’t care about Ukraine, it doesn’t care about its people, it doesn’t care about its democratic aspirations. It doesn’t care if Ukrainians get killed by Russians. I think that’s the message Trump’s conduct sent, that we would use Ukraine as a political plaything
Schiff added “that Putin anticipated if he started a broader invasion of Ukraine, he could count on Trump either to praise him or to criticize Biden.”
“Trump has done both.”
Evidence
Turning away from Trump’s and Putin’s consequential relationship to today’s TauBits of Wisdom shifts my gears a little.
“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “Prescient information pops to mind. What’s the difference between intuition and imagination? You’ll get the sense of knowing something immediately without understanding how you could. That’s intuition.” Scorpio
And, that’s me. Elsewhere I described what happens during one of my advisory sessions. I’ll listen to what my client or executive or MBA executive student describes about a current situation until pieces of their stories click into knowing something that’s the difference maker in their dilemma. Sometimes it arrives as a mind-video, sometimes it takes a probing question to trigger it with their answer. Sometimes it arrives a sentence or two at the beginning of the session. The imagination part kicks in when together we consider scenarios and strategies to solve what’s blocked their success.
“4” Steve Aoki, 41; Steven Spielberg, 74: “If you’re not sure why you’re so popular lately, it could be the charmingly unpredictable element you bring to conversation. Quite the opposite of the usual interactions, your contributions are unexpected.” Sagittarius
When it’s not about helping someone else to help me to help them — I so hated that expression — and it’s just a conversation I look for the pun. Something somebody just said in the middle of the conversation sparks a slight smile and then there it is, an unexpected twist that tickled me and causes laughter.
“4” Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53; Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “A lot of people have ideas, but far fewer have the bold determination to follow through. Consider yourself among the elite. Planning is a pleasure. Get as much on paper as you can now while you’re thinking clearly” Capricorn
So Emma the Baroness threw a party for two of her closest non-sorority sister long-time friends last night. She hosted a Bachelor Party Viewing night — that either just ended or just began — as an excuse like a book club to drink wine, or in this case lemon tear drops, catch up, eat and drink and eat and talk in that Experiencing Self space all close friends occupy when they get together.
I volunteered my banishment to our upstairs master bedroom and somehow stumbled across an PBS documentary that inspired me. I wonder if Aldwyth is still alive, because the show aired a few years ago.
But, here’s her official story that played out and moved me —
Aldwyth is a single-named South Carolina artist who defies categorization. She is a painter, a sculptor, a box constructionist, and an intricate collagist. Like her artwork, the trajectory of Aldwyth’s artistic life has been anything but simple. ALDWYTH: FULLY ASSEMBLED follows her remarkable creative journey, documenting her challenges and obstacles and telling the story of her inspiring “second act.”
What’s Going On …
Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll
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- @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12252 this week to 12344 organically grown followers.
- Orange County Beach Towns 234 viewers stopped by the week before.
Foresight
Quality-of-Life
Long-Form
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- “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.”
- David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate
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