2018

Holy shit, it’s only Wednesday!

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE GAVE MUELLER DOCUMENTS ON THWARTED SESSIONS RESIGNATION FROM LAST JUNE

Back in November, the Department of Justice gave the Special Counselor’s Office documents regarding the attempted resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Back befor Mueller was named the Special Counselor, Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from any investigations regarding Russia, due to being a member of the Foreign Relations Committee on the Trump Campaign. He can’t oversee an investigation where he might be investigating himself.

Fast forward a couple months, and Mueller is named the Special Counselor. Trump had a shitfit, and the Keebler Nazi offered to resign. This went back and forth until June, when Trump ultimately did not accept the resignation. That didn’t stop him from publicly blaming Jeff for everything that had gone wrong, and if he’d known that Jeff would recuse, he never would have named him as Attorney General.

This resignation was an end-around method of firing Mueller. Because Sessions was recused, he had no say over what Rod Rosenstein could order Robert Mueller to do. But, if Sessions wasn’t in that position, the replacement could then order the investigation to end.

These events took place in the Spring and Summer of 2017, and Mueller received the documents in November 2017. They’ve had two months to study them, and news is just coming out about them.

Trump is fucked, yo.

MUELLER SEEKS INTERVIEW WITH CORALLO

In more Trump is Fucked news, Mueller wants to meet with Mark Corallo, former spokesman for Trump’s Legal Team.

Mark resigned from the team last Summer, following the Donnie Jr. Statement about the Russians that Trump authored and told his son to publish.

From the book “Fire and Fury”

“Corallo, seeing no good outcome — and privately confiding that he believed the meeting on Air Force One represented a likely obstruction of justice — quit,” Michael Wolff reports in his explosive new book “Fire and Fury.”

People are asking “Why now? Why not earlier?” Here’s why I think it’s just going down now…

Mark is a lawyer, and was one of Trump’s lawyers. As much as Bobby can tell people to show up for questioning, they need a damn good reason first. Doubly so if the person is a lawyer, and double that if they want to ask a lawyer for the President what he saw. This is a legal hand grenade they’re holding, and if it isn’t handled just right, it could go off in their face.

My guess is they likely will speak to him, voluntarily, and will get some pushback from the White House about executive privilege, or attorney-client privilege, which will be shot down since he was no longer their attorney when they were committing what he felt was a crime.

TRUMP ASKED ROSENSTEIN IF HE WAS ‘ON MY TEAM’

Nothing like asking for loyalty when hiring senior members of the Justice Department.

Trump wanted to know where the special counsel’s Russia investigation was heading. And he wanted to know whether Rosenstein was “on my team.”

Rosenstein’s meeting with the President came as Rosenstein prepared to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Trump appeared focused on Rosenstein’s testimony, according to a source briefed on the matter, and he brought it up with the deputy attorney general.

As a further sign of the President’s focus on Rosenstein’s testimony, one of the sources said Trump also had suggested questions to members of Congress that they could ask Rosenstein.

The shit is flying fast and furious now.

THE NUNES MEMO IS, AT BEST, A PR CLUSTERFUCK

Here’s what we know so far…

January 31, 2018

FBI Statement on HPSCI Memo

The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.

With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.

Material omissions of fact. Fuck. That’s a very polite way of calling Nunes a lying son of a bitch by use of cherry picking.

STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS REVIEW

Here are some takeaways from what was, and likely will be, Trump’s only State of the Union Address…

Trump took credit for Obama’s accomplishments.

Trump asked Congress to end the rule of law by asking for permission to fire career government officials who aren’t working for the “good of the country.”

“Whoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job.”

The scariest part isn’t the crazy stuff Trump says or does, but how servile the Republicans have become.

SPYCRAFT 101: DON’T BLOW YOUR COVER

John Schindler has a great write-up of how Trump’s inactions on implementing sanctions show that he is without a doubt a Russian Asset.

TREY GOWDY NOT RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION

Trey Gowdy is not seeking re-election to represent a very safe district in South Carolina.

For a while, he was the only member of Congress that was more of a shill for Trump than Nunes. However, he’s deciding to go “back to Justice.” There’s a rumor that he’s angling for a seat on the 4th District Appeals Court.

MATTIS WANTS CELL PHONES BANNED FROM PENTAGON

Secretary of Defense James Mattis wants to ban personal cell phones from the Pentagon, following recent security concerns.

Over the past weekend, it was discovered that soldiers using the Strava workout app were unintentionally sharing their locations, and the locations of secret military bases around the world. This, combined with likely unauthorized recordings in the White House by former staffers are pushing this forward.

TRAIN CARRYING GOP MEMBERS TO RETREAT IN WEST VIRGINIA CRASHES WITH TRUCK

The members of Congress were on their way to a retreat in West Virginia.

As of this writing, there is 1 fatality.

OP-ED: WHY IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY GASLIGHTING AMERICA?

Here’s an interesting opinion piece that might get lost in the shuffle, given everything else happening today.

TRUMP ADMIN SEEKS TO CUT RESEARCH INTO CLEAN ENERGY BY 72 PERCENT

In a “Fuck You” to the future, Trump wants to cut research into clean energy so that this country can focus on fossil fuels.

In other news, next week he plans to ban Spotify to prop up the phonograph industry.

STORMY DANIELS ON JIMMY KIMMEL

It’s a crazy ass world when a porn star denies writing a letter signed under their stage name, and they have more credibility than a lawyer representing the President.

I’m not sure how best to describe this, except, WTF?

RUMOR MILL: GOWDY’S GOING TO PRISON

Regarding Trey Gowdy’s decision to not seek re-election, many of the voices in the Rumor Mill come to the same conclusion:

Trey Gowdy is going to prison.

Maybe not right away, but soon. Gowdy, like Nunes, was part of the Trump Transition Team. You know, the one that Mike Flynn was a part of and flipped on. What are the odds that Flynn gave Mueller the dirt on everyone on the team? I’d say those numbers are between 95% to 99.999999999999999999999999% likely.

Gowdy has also been caught receiving campaign contributions directly from Trump’s PAC on the day that the House Intelligence Committee began its work.

Gowdy isn’t the first, and won’t be the last high-profile Republican to get out while the getting’s good. Especially as the shitstorm of leaks and information rains down from Justice over the Nunes Memo.

That’s it for today, so far. As I’m writing this, it’s late afternoon, early evening, so something big will happen. I’ll update when I can.

This day reminds me of an old clip from Dennis Miller Live, when he was talking about watching the O.J. Simpson car chase. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something like “I couldn’t help but watch. Not just because I was transfixed at how weird this shit was, but I kept thinking ‘This is L.A.. This is the only place were we’ll get pulled from this to something even weirder, like a helicopter chase where the Queen of England is blowing Barney the Dinosaur.'”

That’s what this feels like. I’m half expecting to hear a report about how Donald Trump got pegged by Her Royal Majesty with a 14″ black strap-on.

Now that I’ve put THAT image in your mind…

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 01/30/2018

It’s Tuesday. At 9PM EST, Trump will deliver his first, hopefully only, State of the Union Address. Here’s some of what happened today. A lot happened, so I’m hitting this up News Dump style. Also, I’m writing this before and during the SOTU, so if something crazy happens, I’ll talk about it here. Otherwise, I’ll assume it’s the standard issue Trump train wreck, and it’ll be covered here tomorrow. That, and I’d rather slam my dick in a car door than listen to Trump talk for an hour.

SHEARER DOSSIER, A SECOND MEMO HANDED TO FBI BY STEELE, UNDER SCRUTINY BY FBI

Cody Shearer, a long-time Clinton supporter who has the money and connections to do his own opposition research, did just that against Donald Trump last year, and came to many of the same conclusions that Christopher Steele did. His research uncovered that the Russians had sexual kompromat on him. His research also uncovered things that Steele didn’t.

Why am I talking about Cody Shearer? Isn’t he the guy who voiced Apu Nahasapeemmapetalion? No, that’s Hank Azaria. Harry Shearer voiced Ned Flanders and was in Spinal Tap.

The reason I’m mentioning Cody Shearer is that his memo ended up in Christopher Steele’s hands, and he handed that to the FBI.

And the FBI is still looking into some of it’s claims.

Yes, after more than 15 months, the FBI is still digging into some of its claims. They don’t do that if it didn’t have legs.

I think this memo, dossier, write-up, recipe for treason soufflé has something a lot more important than whether or not Trump likes getting spanked with his own face or enjoys golden showers. I go into more detail in the Rumor Mill section.

TRUMP ASKS SESSIONS TO PROSECUTE MUELLER

In a move that reeks of guilt, desperation, and autocracy, Trump allegedly asked the Keebler Nazi to look into prosecuting Special Counselor Robert Mueller.

Here’s the thought process, and I use that term loosely…

Trump knows the shitstorm he’ll cause by firing Mueller without cause. But, if Jeff Sessions can find something, ANYTHING to discredit Mueller, they could use that as just cause to fire Mueller.

I don’t have a date for this story, but if it’s like most things leaking out of the White House that incriminates Trump, this likely happened months ago. Or earlier today. But, I’d venture a guess that this was a few months ago.

Why?

This lines up with the general strategy that Team Trump brought up months ago with targeting the Comey Witnesses in the FBI. This is the kind of thing that makes sense for someone obsessed with protecting themselves. It almost feels like something leaked from a defense lawyer who’s trying to save their client’s ass.

PAUL RYAN: ‘CLEANSE THE FBI’

When the Speaker of the House uses language straight out of a Banana Republic or some other Fascist regime, we are on the precipice of dangerous times.

This isn’t the language of an innocent man or party. These are the actions of someone trying to save their ass from prison.

MSNBC ANALYST ASKS CONGRESSMAN IF NUNES IS COMPROMISED BY RUSSIANS

Dipshit Cowpoke’s actions don’t make any sense by themselves. All of his consistent, coordinated attacks against the IC and Law Enforcement communities ultimately make him a target, and Trump has no loyalty to anyone, so he’s putting himself out there as a target. This doesn’t make any sense.

Unless, he’s been compromised.

Someone’s got some shit on Devin Nunes. Whether it’s video of him screwing a little boy, or him taking part in planning a kidnapping, someone’s got the dirt on him.

Considering that he’s been Trump’s bitch this entire time, it’s either Trump, the Russians, or both.

5 QUESTIONS THE NUNES MEMO NEEDS TO ANSWER

Asha Rangappa asked 5 questions that must be answered in Devin’s 4 page memo for it to be anything other than a partisan PR stunt to try to say that Carter Page wasn’t a Russian Agent.

When did the FBI open their investigation on Carter Page?
Who in the DOJ conducted the Woods review to verify the FISA application?
Which judge approved the memo?
Was the FISA warrant extended?
Has Mueller used anything derived from this investigation?

If these questions aren’t answered, then this is nothing more than a glorified attempt to blow smoke up our asses.

SEAN HANNITY PARODY ACCOUNT CATFISHES JULIAN ASSANGE

Remember all of those times I said that Sean Hannity might be under an FBI Investigation? Well, looks like there’s some fire to that smoke, and it came out in the dumbest way possible.

Over the weekend, Sean Hannity’s twitter account disappeared. Twitter was purging some bots, and his verified account was removed. During that time, while the real Sean was fighting to get his account restored, several fakes arose. One of these fakes was so convincing, an old friend DM’ed the account.

That old friend was Julian Assange.

Julian sent the fake Hannity direct messages and offered some condolences, and offered our Fake Sean some dirt on Senator Mark Warner. He also said that if he wanted to talk, he knew how to get a hold of him through other channels.

Trump talks to Hannity. Hannity talks to Assange. Assange talks to Go-Betweens like Nigel Farage, and those Go-Betweens talk to Russia.

CIA DIRECTOR POMPEO MET WITH SANCTIONED SVR DIRECTOR ON UNITED STATES NO FLY LIST

There’s a few questions that need answering, like “Who the fuck let this guy in the country?” and “Why are the heads of the CIA and DNI meeting with him?”

POMPEO: RUSSIA WILL INTERFERE IN MID-TERM ELECTIONS

I’m hoping the above story about the meeting was a warning to the Russians to not even try anything, but Trump is a god damned Russian Asset.

Any inaction this year is being complicit in an attack on this country.

RUSSIA ANGRY ABOUT TREASURY LIST OF OLIGARCHS

Putin is angry at the United States because the Oligarchs are angry at Putin because they showed up on a list of potential targets for sanctions.

Before too long, sanctions will be the least of their problems.

AMAZON, JP MORGAN, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY TO JOIN FORCES AND CREATE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY

Just the news of these three giants getting together caused the stocks of several existing insurance companies to drop.

Granted, if the United States had Universal Health Care, we wouldn’t need another health insurance company, but more competition is needed.

NYT OP-ED: IS IT TIME FOR REPUBLICANS TO FORM A THIRD PARTY?

This is something that I’ve talked about before in The Multi-Party System. There isn’t any room in the modern Republican Party for the Trump supporters and the true conservatives. The only question I have is who will leave first.

RICK WILSON: A CONSPIRACY OF DUNCES

This article is definitely worth a read. Rick Wilson has a way with words that I wish to get to one day. If I could stay on topic for a few thousand words while dropping a new insult every 10 words, I’d still have a long way to go.

HARLEY-DAVISON TO CLOSE KANSAS CITY PLANT

H-D has been coasting for years, and their “loyal fan base” wouldn’t let them innovate and move forward. Any time they would try to expand the lineup or come out with something new and exciting, the “Loud Pipes Save Lives” crowd would bitch and cry about how these new bikes weren’t “true” Harley’s.

Harley-Davidson made their fortunes in the last 30 years by being a symbol of the counterculture of the Baby Boomer youth, which was 20 years before that. They pared down their lineup of almost everything sporty, fast, and nimble, and concentrated on selling rolling sofas to Grandma and Grandpa.

They’ve kept this up for the last 15 years, and have milked the Baby Boomers for all their worth. Meanwhile, younger people see these bikes less as a symbol of rebellion and more as a symbol of a dentist playing weekend warrior.

Harley-Davidson is exhausting their base, and they aren’t bringing new riders to the tent. Most young people that do ride like sport bikes, enduros, adventure bikes, or smaller, cheaper cruisers. By the time a rider has enough money to buy a Harley, they have other things to spend that money on like day care and a mortgage.

There’s an allegory here to be made about the current state of the Republican Party. Two long-term brands that started off as the symbol of rebellion, falling on hard times in the 1970’s, and had to reinvent themselves by committing themselves to their true believers. Now, they’ve committed so hard to their ideals that they’ve painted themselves into a corner. If they don’t change their ways, neither will be around in 20 years.

WRAP-UP AND RUMOR MILL: BUT IT GOES TO 11

So, back to the Shearer Dossier.

It hasn’t been released to the public, and likely won’t be for a long time, so there’s no way of knowing what’s in it, but based off of some rumors that I’ve heard, I want to make a couple suppositions about what’s in it.

Cody Shearer is a long-time political insider, but is deep enough in the background that a basic Google search doesn’t pull much up. So, he’s not out there hogging the spotlight, and he doesn’t have so many enemies that a search for his is overwhelmed.

It looks like he has money and connections. That means he likely has connections to other people with money, and money people. People who handle money, and know who else is handling money.

So, what does his memo have in it that Christopher Steele couldn’t verify on his own?

Campaign money laundering.

Something missing from the Steele Dossier that was part of the original corruption rumors was that the GOP had coordinated with the Russians to launder money into the elections, and this was caught on tape by the FBI at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Part of that rumor was that it had been independently confirmed by opposition research, and that was widely believed to be the Steele Dossier. Only problem with that hypothesis is that Steele never mentions Cleveland, or the Republican Convention.

So, if Steele didn’t mention it, but it was attributed to him, how does that happen?

That’s where Shearer’s Dossier comes in. My guess is that his sources in the campaign finance world saw that something was up and clued him in on it. He followed up with a few more sources, and heard some rumors about the Russians in Cleveland. At some point, this got into Steele’s hands, who then handed it over to the FBI.

This memo or dossier has been talked about and alluded to for a while, but it didn’t break into the press until today. Angry White House Staffer was surprised it stayed hidden for as long as it has. He also claims that the information in it is the reason the GOP is losing their shit right now.

I’m putting a few pieces of this puzzle together, and making more than a few connections, but if Angry is right about this dossier, and that the GOP is going into full panic over the contents of it, and the FBI has spent a year following up on it, then the claim has to be big. Big in impact and scope. Big enough to cause the entire party leadership to go full, complete, desperate, self-preservation mode. Big enough to cause most of the House and several Senators to panic.

What ties them together?

Money.

Cody Shearer knows the money people.

That’s it for today. Like I said earlier, tonight is the State of the Union. It’s late, and I didn’t hear about the Dotard taking a dump on the floor or anything like that, so I’ll cover it tomorrow.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 01/29/2018

Monday, January 29th.

DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR McCABE STEPS DOWN

The embattled Deputy FBI Director is taking terminal leave, stepping down, or was forced out, depending on who you ask.

Multiple sources were each saying something slightly different, but it breaks down like this…

Andrew McCabe was scheduled to retire in March at the age of 49 with a full pension. The initial plan was for him to stay on until March in this position, but suddenly this morning, he announced that today was his last day, and that he was using “Terminal Time” until his retirement date.

Terminal Time: IIRC, Government employees accrue sick time and it carries over from year to year. If you don’t use it this year, it adds on to next year’s, and so on. At the end of 20 years, one could have a few months saved up. That sounds like a little bit what happened.

Some sources are saying that he was forced out, others are saying that this was a compromise between him and FBI Director Chris Wray so that Wray could get his leadership team in place.

Everyone is freaking out and losing their minds, acting like this is the beginning of the State of the Union Massacre. A lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that Rosenstein is next, followed by Mueller. Firing the investigator doesn’t make the investigation or the facts discovered disappear.

He will be replaced by Associate FBI Director David Bowdich. More on him and this whole situation later on in the Rumor Mill section.

HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE VOTES ON PARTY LINES TO RELEASE NUNES MEMO, TO OPEN INVESTIGATIONS INTO DOJ AND FBI

Dipshit Cowpoke Devin Nunes has gone full traitor. Never go full traitor.

In a complete party line vote, the Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee voted to release Devin’s memo, not release the Democrats response memo, and refuse to be briefed by the FBI Director before doing so.

This whole nonsense sounds like a half-assed PR stunt gone wrong. The Dipshit Who Cried Wolf has once again put himself in a position where he’s battling the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement of this country. Now, he’s trying to expose classified information that is vital to protection of the country so he can try to justify his actions in helping Trump.

These are not the actions of a man or a party that is innocent. This is not the Republican Party I grew up with. Hell, even the Party of Reagan at least had some scruples and respect for the law.

The Party of Law and Order is openly battling the FBI, the DoJ, and the Intelligence Community.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BELIEVES THAT CARTER PAGE IS A RUSSIAN AGENT

When your case for political bias is extending a search warrant against a suspected spy, you suck at conspiracy theories.

Shortly after the inauguration, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized extending an already existing FISA warrant to keep an eye Carter Page. This is pretty much rubber-stamping a previous order because they felt that the Sheldon Cooper of Treason was still up to some shit.

Here’s the talking point that will be repeated ad nauseam on Fox News…

Rod Rosenstein was corrupted by the Steele Dossier, even though there’s no evidence he’d ever seen it, had ever heard of it, or even knew who Christopher Steele was. Further, this completely ignores the fact that THE MOTHER FUCKING DUTCH TIPPED US OFF TO RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE MONTHS BEFORE CHRIS STEELE. If that’s not enough, this point relies on people forgetting the previous talking points that Carter Page was a nobody on the campaign and that the Steele Dossier was a fabricated mess based on rumors and innuendo.

Which is it?

RUSSIAN SANCTIONS DEADLINE PASSES WITH TRUMP DOING NOTHING

While all this shit is going on, the Trump Administration refuses to implement the sanctions that they were ordered to do by Congress last year.

If it weren’t obvious by this point, let me spell it out…

Donald Trump is a Russian Asset. Whether knowingly and/or willingly will need to be worked out through investigation.

VESELNITSKAYA EXPOSED AS RUSSIAN INTEL IN SWISS CORRUPTION CASE

The Swiss have accused Natalia Veselnitskaya of being a Russian Spy, in a corruption case against a member of the Swiss FCP.

This is also a great article as it goes into further detail about Sergei Magnitsky and the tax fraud he uncovered that ultimately cost him his life.

Remember, these are same people that met with the President’s Campaign Team in his own building.

NEW INFORMATION RAISES MORE QUESTIONS, SAYS MARK WARNER OF SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

While the House Intelligence Committee brings about the end of the Republican Party, the Senate Intelligence Committee has new damning information which raises more questions.

The grown-ups in Congress are actually investigating the Russian Interference, and late last year they received a document dump. What they found scared the crap out of them. So much so that they feel that their investigation will continue for most of the year, if not longer.

This part of the article seems eerily prescient given today’s news.

Warner also warns about a “coordinated” attack by the president and “Trump zealots” in the House of Representatives to undermine the legitimacy of the investigations against him, an effort Warner says includes the president’s threats to fire special counsel Robert Mueller and other officials as well as a secret Republican memo alleging “shocking” FBI surveillance abuse against Trump that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is now threatening to release. Warner calls out Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in arguably more explicit terms than any Democrat has yet, saying he has read the underlying classified material used in the memo and that Nunes misrepresented it as part of a McCarthyite “secret Star Chamber” effort to discredit the FBI probe of the president.

WHITE HOUSE IN PERJURY PANIC

The Trump White House, his Legal Team, Friends, Enemies, Co-conspirators, anyone who’s ever met him expects Trump to commit perjury if he interviews Mueller.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump is trying to fire Mueller because he believes he’ll get railroaded in his interview by “gotcha” questions, and that he honestly thinks that if he gets rid of him, his problems will disappear.

Trump is dead wrong.

There is no universe in the connected multiverse springing from this one where Trump gets away with this shit. Sealed indictments exist in multiple jurisdictions against Donald Trump (per the Rumor Mill), and they’ll likely get unsealed upon Mueller’s firing. That assumes he survives the leaks of all leaks as WaPo and NYT run the stories that Mueller asked them to hold back in June 2017 that included the transcripts of the Mayflower Tapes where they have Trump on video asking the Russians for help in the election.

Mueller interviewing Trump is a courtesy at this point, where it will give him a chance to protect himself by throwing his staff and family under the bus.

Which is another reason they don’t want him to talk to Mueller. About 10 minutes in, he’ll say it’s Ivanka’s fault, like he did in the Jose Andres case. And he was the plaintiff that time!

ANOTHER REPUBLICAN RETIRING

This marks the 33rd Republican in Congress to not seek reelection in 2018.

Trump being less popular than some forms of cancer, combined the with #MeToo movement is making this shape up to be an interesting election year.

538: MORE RESIGNATIONS IN THIS CONGRESS THAN IN RECENT HISTORY

Combined with the number of Republicans refusing to run for reelection, we’re seeing something historic here.

These are all individual pieces of data, but there’s a lot shaping up for 2018 to be the beginning of the end of the Republican Party. I know, that sounds like hyperbole, but the version we see today is dying, and will either continue to embrace a smaller and more extreme base year after year, or will have to readjust.

Assuming it survives the rumored RICO investigation.

RUMOR MILL: A DIFFERENT TAKE ON McCABE

When crazy shit happens, I have a bad habit of getting caught up in the hysteria of the moment. Everyone starts whipping around like it’s the end of the world, like the sky’s falling, and dogs and cats are getting along.

Eventually, I catch my breath and look for a few people in the Twitter crowd. I look for the core of the Rumor Mill. Louise Mensch, Claude Taylor, John Schindler, Eric Garland, Countercheckist, Tea Pain, and the Alt accounts. What are they doing, and what are they saying. Are they keeping their cool, or losing their heads?

When James Comey was fired, I did the same thing, partly to see what they were saying, but mostly to console myself that Democracy wasn’t dying in front of my eyes. What they said and did was interesting. They talked about how Comey knew this was going to happen, and how he laid out the groundwork for someone at the DOJ to take over for him. About a week later, Robert Mueller was named the Special Counselor.

When the craziness of all the bad news came out in late October, they kept up the talk about how indictments were incoming by the end of the month. Right before Halloween, Manafort and Gates were arrested.

Today, once again things feel dark and gloomy, like something terrible is on the horizon. So, I check out the Rumor Mill and see what they’re saying and doing.

They are … rather calm. Tea Pain is cracking jokes as usual, Eric is retweeting a reminder that Articles of Impeachment are already on file against Donald Trump, the Alts are hunkering down for a fight, Countercheckist is retweeting quite a bit about RICO and This FBI Raid from last May. Claude is staying relatively chill, sending out proofs for new campaign billboards, and Louise…

Louise is borderline giddy at McCabe’s leaving. Not because he wasn’t doing a good job, but with who was brought in to replace him, and the timing.

David Bowdich was a field operative, SWAT team member and sniper for the FBI before he joined the management team. He’s career FBI, and doesn’t take shit from anyone. He was promoted to Associated Director by Bob Mueller and named the head of the Los Angeles Field Office, and was the head of the Counterterrorism Task Force. He was the face of the department following the San Bernardino terror attack.

Andrew McCabe might have been talked into using his accrued sick days, or could have been planning on other things, but Wray is now in a position to chose his second in command at the FBI, and he chose to promote the third in command to second in command.

Wray has already named two other people to leadership positions in the FBI, filling the void left by people pushed out by Trump and the Republicans. They pushed out Jim Rybicki, and get Zach Harmon. They pushed out James A. Baker, and got Dana Boente instead. They pushed out Andrew McCabe, and got a fucking sniper instead.

I’m still skeptical of Chris Wray, and always will be until he puts a pair of cuffs around Trump’s tiny hands. But his hires are very interesting. On paper, they look like they could be yes-men, but in reality they are anything but.

As far as McCabe having access to the Trump information, here’s what Louise had to say on that:

If Louise is right on this, then Trump assumed that McCabe knew everything that Comey knew, while the real Deputy working the case slipped under the radar. McCabe only knew about Trump and Obstruction of Justice, not Russia. At least, not until he became Acting Director.

Let me put this in gaming terms…

McCabe was the meat shield to take the hits, while Kable was doing a sneak attack. McCabe drew the ire of the Orange Troll while Kable snuck around, picked his pockets of any valuable info, and stabbed him in the back.

That’s it for today. Yes, it’s been a crazy day. I think it’s going to get crazier this week. The President and his party have refused to enact sanctions against a foreign power that attacked this country, have begun open warfare against the law enforcement community, and are trying to actively make a case to fire anyone investigating this issue.

This is a list of ready-to-go protests around the United States, within 24 hours of shit hitting the fan. Check your area, sign up if you feel comfortable with that, or hold on to the link if you don’t. Be ready. This may come down to a general strike, the likes of which this country hasn’t seen in a century.

We’ll get through this mess, but it’ll get uglier before it gets brighter.

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 01/26/2018

Friday and the weekend.

DETAILS EMERGE IN DUTCH INFILTRATION OF RUSSIAN HACKER CELL COZY BEAR

Here’s what we learned…

Cozy Bear, a.k.a. APT29, is located in a University building across the street FROM THE MOTHER FUCKING KREMLIN.
The Dutch had access to their security cameras.
The Dutch helped the United States State Department fend off an attack from the Russians in 2014.
The Russians managed to get a phishing mail into the White House.
The Dutch helped the NSA get on the PHONES OF RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE.
Every time the Russians began an attack, they’d Google it to see if anyone was talking about it before they did it.

Article 5, mother fucker.

TRUMP TRIED TO FIRE DEPUTY AG ROSENSTEIN

This was reported before, part of the Mueller story from 1-25-18, but Trump thought about firing the Deputy AG as well.

Trump wants to fire Mueller, and realizes that as long as Rosenstein is in his position, he can’t fire Mueller. One option that was talked about earlier was firing the Deputy Attorney General, then ordering the replacement to fire Mueller. Problem is, there’s no guarantee that would work, and we’d enter into a replay of the Saturday Night Massacre. I think I covered that in Lateral Movement.

MUELLER INTERVIEWED FACEBOOK EMPLOYEE ABOUT HELPING TRUMP AND TIES TO RUSSIA

SCO Mueller interviewed employees of Facebook and asked them about how they helped Trump in the election, and how the Russians were involved.

TRUMP TARGETED FBI WITNESSES

Trump ordered a strategy of attacking several witnesses to his crimes of Obstruction of Justice in an attempt to discredit them.

Here’s a list of some of the laws that he broke…

18 U.S. Code § 1503 – Influencing or injuring officer or juror generally

18 U.S. Code § 1505 – Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees

18 U.S. Code § 1509 – Obstruction of court orders

18 U.S. Code § 1510 – Obstruction of criminal investigations

18 U.S. Code § 1512 – Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

18 U.S. Code § 1516 – Obstruction of Federal audit

KUSHNER MUST DISCLOSE BUSINESS PARTNERS

A Federal Judge has ordered Jared Kushner to release the names of his business partners in several Maryland corporations that he’s connected to.

For those not familiar, Maryland has very lax requirements when creating a company, and very low taxes. For a few hundred dollars, one could create an LLC in Maryland on LegalZoom.com and have a fully legal business in a lickety-split.

The reason I think this is big is that once news comes out of who his businesses are connected to, he’ll be even further up shit creek than he already is.

STEVE WYNN RESIGNED AS GOP FINANCE CHAIR

Steve Wynn, a casino owner in Las Vegas who was appointed as the Finance Chair of the GOP by Donald Trump, resigned this weekend after news broke on Friday of him pulling a Weinstein.

Pulling a Weinstein: Abusing a position of money and power for sexual favors, up to and including rape, then using said money and power to force their victims into silence.

So far, the Republicans have not returned the money that he donated or raised for them.

TRUMP BOOED BY FOREIGN PRESS IN DAVOS

Thanks to Dallas for this story.

Following news broke of Trump trying to fire Mueller broke, The Dotard pulled the same “Fake News” bullshit that he does every single time a story breaks that he doesn’t like. This time, the Foreign Press at Davos booed him. Just like he deserves.

DIVORCE PUTIN DAUGHTER, LOSE A BILLION DOLLARS

Another example of Russian Kleptocracy at work.

Putin is a thief and a dictator. This is not the first time that someone who crossed Vladimir. I wouldn’t be surprised if he “slipped on some tea.”

Or, just a good, old fashioned Russian Heart Attack.

ALEXEI NALVANY ARRESTED IN RUSSIAN PROTESTS

And here’s another example of Russian Corruption.

The people, especially the young people in Russia, are sick and tired of Putin’s regime. In a clear and free election, Nalvany would win in a landslide. But Russia doesn’t have free and open elections. They rig them to let Putin hold on to power.

After we clean house in America and get our shit under control, we’re coming after the regimes that attacked the United States. Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Erdogan’s Turkey, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Don’t think we forgot about you.

TRUMP SEEKS RELEASE OF NUNES MEMO

In a surprise to absolutely no one, Trump is siding with his stooge Devin Nunes over the Department of Justice and the FBI.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, Trump has no respect for the rule of law, and thinks he’s above it. I can’t wait for him to get smashed with the Hammer of Justice.

VINNY MAC RAPE ACCUSATIONS FROM 2006

Following the announced restart of the XFL, The Daily Beast released a story reminding us all that Vince McMahon, owner of WWE and a long time friend of Donald Trump, was accused of attempted rape and sexual assault back in 2006.

I’ve heard rumors about some kind of shady connection between Trump and McMahon going back for years, possibly including their friend Jeffrey Epstien.

Vince’s wife Linda is a member of Trump’s Cabinet.

That’s it for today. I might write something else tonight, but if I do, it’ll be short and/or light-hearted. Then again, I could use a bit of a break. It’s been a long weekend, and I’m watching wrestling tonight…

Hey, that’s an idea. How this political situation would work out if it were a wrestling angle. Angle is wrestling-speak for story.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur