I have a rule. Only one. And its fairly general. Almost a generalisation, but spared only because generalisations are generally wrong. The rule is this: if a man is accused of wrong-doing, he’s always guilty if his hair is dyed. Just as an extension (to the rule, not the hair), dyed hair on men is actually always a sign of guilt, you just sometimes need to look deeper to find what he’s guilty of.

You look round the Chinese National Congress, all late-middle aged men (ok, one woman out of 2400, so safe to ignore her, like the other 2399 delegates probably do) and there’s not a grey hair in sight. The President himself looks like he bought his jet-black hair from an Elvis impersonator store. Yet the greatest culprits of this crime against greyness are undoubtedly the Americans. American men don’t go grey; they go a reddy shade of ‘mahogany’. With silver at the roots. Nice. Lucky that Trump is a natural ‘blond’ or he’d be showing signs of grey too and would doubtless dye it into a ridiculous yellow birdsnest. Oh, he does.

So enter Paul Manafort. Stinking rich business-person, Trump campaign chief strategist and all round ‘big guy’ with unnaturally dark hair. Therefore (Andy’s rule) he’s guilty as sin. And of sin. In his case, the sin being taking millions of dollars in payments from the President of the Ukraine, who was himself massively ‘pro-Moscow’. In other words, a Putin Puppet. And Manafort brought the money into the States by buying properties and other acts generally considered to be of the ‘laundering’ variety. Then lying to the Feds about its provenance. As ya do.

Another Trump campaigner, George Papadopoulos, has already pleaded guilty to the investigation about lying over his contacts and his attempts to source Clinton emails from the Russians.

These two are in big-shit trouble with the Feds. Manafort is on ‘house arrest’ and has actually had his passport taken away. An act which wouldn’t trouble 96% of Americans who only acquire passports when they want to go to Florida to shoot alligators. But it will definitely trouble him.

And yet its all kind’a circumstantial at the moment. Big campaign dudes with links to Russia and fraud. But not an actually link to the election mechanism. Not yet anyway.

Trump meanwhile does what he does best. He doesn’t make speeches, he doesn’t hold press conferences, he sends Tweets. Can only handle 15 words at any one time. 9 of them insulting and abusive.

God help America

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx