For all of you who are too young to remember the film, entitled, “The Manchurian Candidate,” the movie was about a young man who was brainwashed while being captured as a POW. He came back home a hero. He was the son of a prominent right wing political family.

Today, we have a candidate, who is very close to Putin. How close is Donald Trump to the former KGB agent, Vladimer Putin?

Putin by the way, is not a nice guy. He was a KGB agent for 16 years. He has been either President or Prime Minister of Russia since 1999 to 2000. A man notorious for murdering his rivals, he is not the kind of friend you want to have.

Donald Trump has been anxious to make a deal as it were with the Russians since he showed an interest in Gorbachacev back in 1988. His son, recently said that his father’s company has an inordinate amount of assets in Russia. The Donald for years has wanted to build a really big hotel in Russia. The finest in the world.

It is not a coincidence that Donald Trump has expressed his disappointment in NATO. This extraordinary change in our relations with NATO is what Trump is offering as a candidate, as he has threatened to leave NATO or at least demand that the members of NATO pay what they owe. NO other candidate has threatened to change our relationship with NATO in the history of American politics. But then this change would meet with a great deal of satisfaction by his friend Vladimer Putin. Putin’s goal is to weaken NATO.

Just yesterday, Trump expressed the thought that Russia is not going into the Ukraine. This is a strange viewpoint since Russia and his buddy Putin have gone into the Ukraine. The independence of the Ukraine is very much on the line. Of course, his friend Putin claims that there are many Russian speaking people in that part of the Ukraine and he has expressed his solidarity with these people as he in a very dark way seeks to conquer the Ukraine.

Putin has already reclaimed the Crimea as being part of the Russian Federation. An independent Ukraine is very much on the table as a source of contention in world affairs as NATO and the United States seeks to keep the Russian bear from reconquering another part of the former Russian empire.

Donald Trump’s campaign manager is reputedly in the pay of the Russian Federation, as well as other members of Trump’s staff or inner circle.

The Russians and in this case Putin, has made a lot of effort in their rag, “Russia Today,” to promote propaganda in support of the candidacy of Donald Trump.

It is quite well worth the time and effort to read an article by Peter Bradshaw on this whole topic, written December 15 of 2015.

By the way this is not the first time that Russia has sought to influence a candidate for President, this was done back in the campaign of Henry Wallace in 1944. And this is not the only candidate that Putin has spent money on to promote. Putin has shown a particular fondness for Pan the French fascist and for the dictator of Hungary as well.

Now this is not to say that Trump is a sleeper agent in the employ of Putin but rather that he is an unwitting dupe, being used by Putin for his own purposes. For Donald Trump it is all about the deal. His God is money. It is all about the deal. Money is more important to him than patriotism.  And to what degree of loyalty will he owe Putin and what does this mean for his candidacy. He has just asked that the Russians hack his opponent to gain more information about Hillary Clinton.

Trump touts Nationalism as his campaign theme. America first is his creed. He has a strange way of showing his nationalism by getting so cozy with our enemy, Vladimer Putin.

Do we really want a foreign power, our enemy being involved in our campaign for the Presidency of the United States?