CrankyYank Vol. 56: Manafort is Money | Deafening Climate Silence | Max Against Idiocy & More

The world is caving in on Paul Manafort.

Some of my die-hard CrankyYank readers will remember me using the same headline when describing Les Moonves—the CBS honcho who bragged about how great Mango Mussolini was for business during last year’s election.

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That’s the only similarity between Manafort and Moonves: both are donald fans, but for different reasons. Both are given to greed, yet only one is facing a multitude of investigations. Manafort is facing inquiries that could not only end his career of “remaking tyrants,” but could also land him in federal priz.

Interestingly, Manafort was hired to salvage the Trump-campaign dumpster fire within two weeks of Mike Flynn last year—both of which have been known to canoodle Russia and engage in shady dealings. (It’s been widely speculated that Flynn has turned state’s evidence and that he’s cut a deal for his testimony.)

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Manafort’s NYC real estate deals—one of them a Trump Tower condo purchased in 2006 for $3.6M—raised eyebrows in how he basically used them as a piggy bank as cash transactions that he promptly borrowed against afterward. You can bet this is being looked at for money laundering.

The Atlantic has a great post up about “Manafort’s Mysterious Millions”—which is a question you could ask about many of Russia’s leading politicians. It’s no surprise that Manafort reminds people of the mafia stereotype:

Manafort has always cut a somewhat sinister figure: He is fond of dark suits with wide pinstripes, giving him an old New York gangster look, and he has worked for a variety of unsavory clients—not just Yanukovych and reportedly Putin, but also Ferdinand Marco and Mobutu Sese Seko. Yet simply appearing sinister and actually breaking the law are two rather different matters.

Manafort looking like a Sopranos mobster means he fits Donald Trump like a glove. How did Manafort even get in to the Trump campaign in the first place? Why did he offer to work for free FFS? Did Manafort have a hand in changing the pro-Russian GOP platform language? What was Trump’s role, if any, in Manafort’s shady business dealings? All of these questions are relevant to the process that stuck us with an inept radical as president*.

 

We’ve had a number of developments in the area of Climate Change this week, most notably the sequel to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth—which woke many of us up to what was happening with our climate.

As it turns out, Truth *understated our dire climate situation. But we should also hold some optimism, as reported by Climate Reality Project.

All I wanna know on this news is this: will Melissa Etheridge write another Oscar-winning theme song for the sequel? This is a great chance to re-up one of the greatest songs to ever accompany a film of any kind—and was my turning point in directing my efforts to books, projects and energy put toward making a difference.

As Etheridge said in her Oscar acceptance speech: “Caring about the earth is not Republican or Democrat; it’s not red or blue. We’re all green.” Her wish fell on deaf ears in large part; in the 10 years since it’s been proven over and over again that only one American political party understands and acts upon our climate emergency.

In a related story, Victoria Herrmann has an important piece up for The Guardian on how the Trump administration is working to break research links and delete evidence of Climate Change. Which leads me to ask: if it’s not a global emergency, why all the fuss of outwardly censoring information? Censorship is a sure sign of guilt.

Many universities and public institutions have successfully hidden public data in the hopes adults will return to governing one day. We can only hope that’s the case.

 

The saddest part about Big Little Lies (HBO)—the limited-run series that I’ve predicted will win a raft of awards—is that it ends on Sunday. The show is one of the best book adaptations ever, film or TV, full stop. So far the show has notched 1.4 million live and same day viewers, which is the series’ best thus far. My guess is it’ll eclipse 2M for the finale (Deadline).

Max Temkin, creator of the wildly popular game “Cards Against Humanity,” has promised to purchase and publish the browsing history of all people in congress—after it voted to overturn the Internet Privacy Act (The Verge)… I was awarded Yelp Atlanta’s Review of the Day today—for a local joint called The Lawrence. I had a feeling it was a special review because it was my first five-star negative review (Yelp)…  Saturday Night Live has peeled back the curtain on an everyday occasion: the Goodnight & Credits closing segment of every show. In this case, it is a 360º view of the studio during Scarlett Johansson’s hosting sign-off, and it’s awesome (YouTube).

 

My Twitter buddy Sean Corcoran is out with a new cartoon that made me spit out my coffee yesterday. I don’t watch Meet the Press, nor am I a fan of Chuck Todd. His coddling of sources during the run-up to the 2016 Election is part of the reason we’re in this United States of Trumpistan mess in the first place. Coddling sources and interviewing like you’re a wet piece of lettuce is an affront to good journalism. (See: CrankyYank Vol. 8 “Morning Cozy“)

MSNBC has gone on a hiring spree of late, snatching up Megyn Kelly and Greta van Sustern, late of Fox so-called News. Despite the net continually breaking records and showcasing exceptional, Emmy-winning journalism in its liberally slanted primetime line-up—the stacking of the bench suggests MSNBC is quietly moving over to the dark side.

All of this came to me from seeing Sean’s cartoon.

Second chance for LOLs: Sassy Trump returns with an epic, lisp-filled rerun of his greatest accomplithshshhhments. Watch:

 

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I was in the car on the way to tennis practice, looking for some motivational music to get me pumped for playing. Along came Heather Small, who’s “Proud” was the official theme song for the 2012 London Olympics.

This is a great lead-in to this week’s Cure Your Crankies moment, because it asks the question: “what have you done today to make you feel proud?” Life is short. Do what you can to make the world a better place.

 

I’m proud to know Leesa Brown. She single-handedly made Positive Impact $900 when she allowed me to print, frame and present one of her photographs through ARTvision.

She’s been a frequent contributor to Cure Your Crankies, CrankyYank’s final department and is a treasured pal indeed.

Her Facebook feed is a rolling, joyous cornucopia of wonderful images from her home state of Florida, so make sure to find her on Facebook and Twitter today. ❏

 

That’s a wrap guys. We’ll see you right back here next Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m.

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Will Pollock is an Atlanta-based freelance multimedia journalist focusing on pop-culture, politics, journalism & media, retail, real estate, travel, politics, and human-interest stories. 

He is the author of two books (Pizza for Good & Leaving Triscuit), with more on the way. Sign up for the mailing list, follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram—and check out the book links below.

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