Donald Trump Personally Handled Sale Of Trump Tower Condo To Haitian Dictator Baby Doc

Scatological comment projected on wall of Trump Hotel Saturday night, apparently by Robin Bell, who has been credited with similar acts previously. (Sorane Yamahira / Bellvisuals.com)

Robin Bell, who has previously projected messages critical of President Trump onto DC's Trump Hotel is credited with turning the presidential word choice of "shithole" into an editorial art installation on Saturday night. The word references countries from which immigration to America is undesirable in the view of the president and other immigration hardliners. The light show by the "projectionist provocateur" including other slogans about the Trump presidency. 

The word was used to describe countries like Haiti, El Salvador and countries in Africa. Trump expressed his preference for people from countries like Norway. 

Most Republicans have been mum about Trump's racist remarks but Utah Rep. Congresswoman Mia Love has joined Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake in condemning the conversation articulated by Dem. Sen. Dick Durbin and backed up by S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham, both senators in the meeting where Trump ambushed them by inviting immigration hardliners to hear the proposal worked out by a bipartisan group of three Democrat and three Republican senators. Graham said he would not comment further and had expressed his thoughts on Trump's comments directly to him in front of others. Graham's SC colleague Rep. Sen. Tim Scott said he was told the word "shithole" was used, presumably by Graham. 

Rep. Mia Love, the first Haitian-American elected to Congress, said on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday, "I can't defend the indefensible. You have to understand that there are countries that struggle out there. But their people, their people are good people and they're part of us. We're Americans."

"The (President's) comments are unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation's values," Love said in a statement Thursday night. "The President must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned."

Nana Akufo-Addo, who assumed the presidency of Ghana last January, took to Twitter to denounce Trump's use of "shithole" to describe countries like his own. The shocked reverberations to Trump's comments have rocked the world of diplomats and ordinary citizens, many of who love America if not our president. 

There's a note of irony in Trump's haughty views about places like Haiti. While Trump's all cash sales of his condos to Russians is well-established amid accusations of money laundering, even I didn't know that America's president personally handled the sale of a Trump Tower condo to the despised Haitian dictator Baby Doc. 

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier lead a reign of terror in Haiti, accused by Human Rights Watch in 2011 of selling dead Haitians' body parts to finance his high-flying lifestyle. The Daily Beast wrote about Trump personally handling the condo sale, noting that "the Stroock & Stroock & Lavan law firm—hired by the Haitian government to search out assets Duvalier had stolen from the Caribbean island-nation—only found out Duvalier owned Apartment 54-K because the dictator hadn’t paid his phone bill. The Haitian government put a lien on the property after he fled."

As Trump Insults San Juan Mayor Cruz & Puerto Rico's US Citizens, Germans Work On Power & Elon Musk, Too

The Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulín Cruz chose a NASTY woman tee for her Univision interview after Trump's drop-in to Puerto Rico on Tuesday.  The crude US president tweeted last Saturday ""The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump."

"When someone is bothered by someone claiming lack of drinking water, lack of medicine for the sick and lack of food for the hungry, that person has problems too deep to be explained in an interview," Cruz said during the interview. "What is really nasty is that anyone would turn their back on the Puerto Rican people."

Trump is the aggrieved party, claiming that the complaints of Cruz about his slow federal aid response to Hurricane Maris are politically motivated. Note that Cruz is not a Democrat and is registered with neither major party. 

“I am begging, begging anyone who can hear us to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency,” the mayor said last Friday. The mayor's remarks followed earlier ones from acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke's comments in which she called the federal government's response "a good news story."

“Maybe from where she’s standing, it’s a good news story,” Cruz said. “When you’re drinking from a creek, it’s not a good news story. When you don’t have food for a baby, it’s not a good news story.”

She added: “Damn it, this is not a good news story. This is a people-are-dying story.”

Carmen Yulin Cruz talks with journalists (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Those comments left Trump fuming. The president insisted on Friday afternoon federal officials were doing a great job with relief efforts. 

"We have done an incredible job, considering there's absolutely nothing to work with," Trump told reporters at the White House. 

"And a very big question is, what are we going to do with the power plant? Because the power plant is totally wiped out," he said. "There is nothing. The power grid is gone."

The utter stupidity of Trump's approach in Puerto Rico, where he threw rolls of paper towels into the crowd, much like a carnival barker, is contrasted with efforts by Sonnen GmbH, a German provider of energy-storage systems. Sonnen began delivering its storage systems to Puerto Rico before Trump arrived, in an effort to provide electricity for at least 15 emergency relief centers across the island. It’s working with local partner Pura Energia, which installs solar panels with Sonnen batteries.

“Our smart energy storage system is uniquely positioned to serve as a critical resource during the emergency in Puerto Rico,” Blake Richetta, the head of Sonnen’s U.S. unit, said in the statement.

Sonnen, operating on the island since 2016, is donating equipment for the 15 relief centers. Committed to Puerto Rico for the long-term, the company will donate profit from local sales to build as many as 35 additional microgrids on the island. The batteries are produced at the company’s recently opened factory in Atlanta, and the first microgrids will be operating in less than a month.

“It is our duty to stand firmly with the people of Puerto Rico and do everything possible to help start the rebuilding process,” Chief Executive Officer Christoph Ostermann said in the statement. “There is a clear connection between our mission to support humanity during a climate disaster and our mission to fight climate change.”

Tesla's Elon Musk, has also indicated that he is prepared to be a key partner in rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid using independent batteries and solar power. 

Puerto Rico’s chief innovation officer Glorimar Ripoli is also on board. “As the Government’s CINO, I fully support this! Let’s build the Puerto Rico we all want through innovation,” she tweeted.

Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulin Cruz embraces Esperanza Ruiz, a city administrator, outside the government centre at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum after Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico Carlos Barria/Reuters

Amid Trump's demeaning comments to Mayor Cruz -- surely fueled by her being a woman -- we assume that he has little knowledge of her background. The Independent UK writes:

Cruz has, in some ways, been a lifelong politician: Class president in eighth grade; student council president in high school.

Like many Puerto Ricans, she left the island to pursue opportunities on the US mainland, earning a bachelor's in political science at Boston University and a master's in public management and policy at Carnegie Mellon.

Apparently Mayor Cruz held key positions not only at Scotiabank but also the US Treasury Department. After returning to Puerto Rico, Cruz became an adviser to Sila Maria Calderon, then the mayor of San Juan who later became Puerto Rico's first and only female governor.

The Carnegie Mellon grad strung together a people-centric coalition including including the LGBT community, students, Dominican immigrants and taxi drivers. Fueled by people power, Cruz defeated a three-time incumbent Jorge Santini.

“Politics is a rough game, and sometimes as females we are taught that you have to play nice,” she said in a 2014 in an interview. “Sometimes you can't play nice.”