Eugene Robinson – Memphis Flyer

Why does Donald Trump say such nice things about Vladimir Putin and Russia? What is Trump hiding in the tax returns he refuses to release? And are those two questions related?

Voters should demand answers. Until we get them, we can only speculate about Trump’s weird admiration for a strongman who presides over a system of autocratic cronyism, flouts international law with his territorial ambitions, works against U.S. interests in hotspots around the globe, and might have even deployed computer hackers to meddle in our election.

There may be nothing nefarious here; perhaps Trump just admires Putin’s swaggering style. But there are reasons to wonder whether Trump’s warm-and-fuzzy feelings are prompted by financial motives.

“Reasons to wonder” normally do not qualify as legitimate fodder for journalism, but these are not normal circumstances. Trump has broken with four decades of precedent and adamantly refused to let voters see his tax returns. His excuse — that he is under audit — is bogus. Given his history as a swashbuckling wheeler-dealer, including four corporate bankruptcies, there are legitimate questions about his finances. Yet he stonewalls, knowing that speculation does not qualify as proof.

Here’s what we know. In July, Trump said in a tweet that he has “ZERO investments in Russia.” If this is true, the more relevant question may be the extent to which Russian oligarchs, by definition beholden to Putin, have investments in Trump and his empire.

In 2008, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., said at a New York real estate conference that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” Referring to the Trump Organization, where he works with his father, he added that “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

That boast would make perfect sense. Following the bankruptcy of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in 2004 — which involved three casinos in Atlantic City and one in Indiana and allowed Trump to get out from under an estimated $1.8 billion in debt — banks became wary of lending to Trump, according to widespread reports.

A 2010 federal lawsuit alleged that much of the money that financed the Trump SoHo luxury hotel development in Manhattan, which broke ground in 2006, came from a shadowy Iceland-based corporate entity. The suit alleges that “the money behind” the firm was “mostly Russian” and that the Russians involved “were in favor with Putin.”

Trump was not charged with any wrongdoing in the suit, but the suit does suggest that if traditional lenders were reluctant to get involved with Trump, Russian money had no such compunctions.

Which raises an obvious question: To what extent are Trump and the Trump Organization dependent on Russian investment? We have no way of knowing. Examination of Trump’s tax returns might provide the answer.

We do know that Trump considered Russian oligarchs prime customers for high-end properties. In 2008, he sold a Palm Beach mansion to billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million. Less than four years earlier, Trump had picked up the property at a bankruptcy auction for $41 million — meaning he made quite a tidy profit. Rybolovlev, who was then worth nearly $13 billion, is not believed to be as close to Putin as some of the other oligarchs, but neither is he in any sense an opponent of the regime.

Despite earlier claims to the contrary, Trump now says he has never actually met Putin. He tried his best to do so in 2013, when he took his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow, but Putin canceled a planned meeting and sent a lacquered box as a present instead, along with what was described as a warm note.

In his campaign, Trump has consistently called for better relations with Russia. He has accepted Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a fait accompli and suggested he might not come to the aid of the Baltic states if Russia invaded. Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort did extensive work on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the thuggish Putin-backed Ukrainian president who was ousted in 2014 and lives in exile in Russia.

As a general rule, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, and I do believe in coincidences. But Trump’s chest-thumping “America First” attitude toward the rest of the world seems to make an exception for Russia, and we need to know why.

Trump supporters will say I’m speculating without the relevant facts. I say provide them: Release the taxes, now.

Eugene Robinson writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. Both statements must be made true if the heartbreaking loss of life in Dallas is to have any meaning.

The killing spree that left five police officers dead and seven others wounded should be classified as an act of domestic terrorism. The shooter, identified as 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, apparently believed he was committing an act of political violence.

Eugene Robinson

Our duty, to honor the fallen, is to ensure that Johnson’s vile and cowardly act has the opposite impact from what he sought. Johnson, who was captured on video shooting one officer in the back, was killed when police, who had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate his surrender, sent a robot his way bearing an explosive device.

Enough about him, except this one thing: He said he was motivated by hatred over the deaths of two more black men — Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota — at the hands of police. The slain police officers were protecting a lawful, peaceful demonstration to protest those same deaths. As the crowd, perhaps more than 800 strong, marched through downtown Dallas, there was anger but no real tension. Certainly there was no sense of danger; police were not wearing riot gear or riding in armored vehicles. Instead, officers chatted and took selfies with the demonstrators. They had no fear of encounter and dialogue.

The great irony is that Dallas is something of a model. Mayor Mike Rawlings was right when he told reporters that Dallas is “one of the premier community policing cities in the country.” Since Police Chief David O. Brown took over in 2010, complaints of excessive force by officers have dropped by nearly two-thirds. Police shootings have been halved, from 23 in 2012 to just 11 in 2015 — and only one so far this year, according to Police Department data.

Brown happens to be African-American, but that’s not the most significant thing about him. What’s important is that Brown was quick to understand that the chasm between police officers and young men of color was real — and that it could be bridged. His officers undergo training in how to de-escalate conflicts rather than heat them up; they learn to speak calmly when approaching suspects instead of immediately barking orders. When there is a police shooting, uniformed presence around the scene is ramped down as soon as possible.

The department, unlike many others, keeps track of police shootings and publishes the figures on the city’s website. And Brown keeps looking for new ways to improve relations between police and the community, realizing that diversity is not a destination but a shared journey.

The Dallas Police Department is not perfect, of course, but its efforts to improve the way officers interact with citizens stand in contrast to the appalling police work we saw in the cellphone videos recording the deaths that prompted protests around the country. Sterling was on the ground in front of a convenience store, restrained by officers and posing no apparent threat, when he was shot to death. Castile, pulled over in a traffic stop, was apparently reaching for his identification to hand to the officer who shot him.

The video of Castile’s final moments was streamed on the internet by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds. In her narration, she says Castile informed the officer that he was licensed to carry a firearm. It is no stretch to imagine that to the officer, this meant Castile was an armed and dangerous black man. Which leads me to a question I shouldn’t have to ask: Does the Second Amendment apply to African Americans too?

But the solution is not more guns. The solution is to end the undervaluing of lives, both black and blue. Poor, troubled, crime-ridden communities are those that most want and need effective policing. But the paradigm cannot be us versus them. It has to be us with us — a relationship of mutual respect. I hope police officers around the nation see how rapidly and completely the people of Dallas — including those in the Black Lives Matter movement — have rallied around their city’s bereaved police department. I hope they understand that compassion for Sterling, Castile, and others killed by police in no way mitigates the nation’s profound sorrow for the brave officers killed in Dallas. Such tragedy is beyond color.

Eugene Robinson writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.